Thunderbolts Officially Announced by Marvel Studios at Comic-Con 2022

San Diego Comic-Con is currently happening in California, and the long-awaited Marvel Studios panel is finally here. Fans of the MCU are eager to learn any new information about the franchise's future and there's a whole lot of content to look forward to, including the Thunderbolts movie. Last month, the studio was scooped when it was revealed that they have plans for a project that will focus on the Thunderbolts team. While news of a writer and director were already shared, Marvel hadn't officially confirmed the movie until now. 

Thunderbolts will be released on July 26th, 2024, and mark the end of Phase Five. The movie is expected to include characters that we haven't met in the MCU yet.

Jake Schreier (Paper Towns, Robot & Frank) is set to helm Thunderbolts and Black Widow scribe Eric Pearson penning the script. After the news was announced, Pearson took to his Instagram stories to confirm the news by posting a screenshot of an article. "Guess we can finally talk about it!" Before today, that post was the closest thing to Marvel confirming the film. 

In the comics, the original Thunderbolts team are revealed to be the supervillain group the Masters of Evil, which include Citizen V (Baron Zemo), Techno (Fixer), Mach-1 (Beetle), Songbird (Screaming Mimi), Atlas (Goliath), and Meteorite (Moonstone). A recent version of the team was led by Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier, in 2016's Thunderbolts. 

There are many characters who could show up in the movie, including Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), U.S. Agent (Wyatt Russell), Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko), Baron Zemo (Daniel Brühl), and Abomination (Tim Roth). The Thunderbolts story heavily involves Thaddeus Ross who was played by William Hurt in the MUC ever since The Incredible Hulk was released back in 2008. Sadly, Hurt died earlier this year, so it's currently unclear what direction the story will take. Many have speculated that Julia Louis-Dreyfus will return as Valentina Allegra de Fontaine in a big way. 

Fans will be especially excited about the return of Pugh, who was last seen in Hawkeye. In a 2021 interview with ComicBook, the star teased Yelena's future as the new Black Widow of the MCU after Natasha's sacrifice in Avengers: Endgame. 

"Going forward, I think the most wonderful thing and the scary thing is that, obviously, I've got major shoes to fill. It's just been really wonderful seeing all the ways that Scarlett's changed conversation about her character," Pugh said. "And I think for me, whatever future there is, I would love to, I suppose, follow in her footsteps in that way. How do we make Yelena different, how do we make her stand out? How do we make her powerful? And that's going to be an ongoing, I hope, conversation. Yeah, I suppose follow in Scarlett's footsteps in that way, changing it."

Are you excited about Thunderbolts? Tell us in the comments!