Marvel’s Thunderbolts Adds The Bear Star in Mystery Role

Marvel Studios’ Thunderbolts has officially found its first new cast member. On Thursday, it was revealed that Ayo Edebiri has been cast in the upcoming blockbuster film in a currently-unknown role. Edebiri is best known for portraying Sydney Adamu on the recent hit FX series The Bear, as well as Missy Foreman-Greenwald on Big Mouth, and Hattie on Dickinson. She also serves as a writer on FX’s series adaptation of What We Do in the Shadows.

Edebiri will join a Thunderbolts cast that includes Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova, Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes / Winter Soldier, David Harbour as Red Guardian, Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, Wyatt Russell as John Walker / U.S. Agent, Hannah John-Kamen as Ava Starr / Ghost, Olgya Kurylenko as Taskmaster, and Harrison Ford as Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross.

What is Thunderbolts about?

While plot details are currently a mystery, Thunderbolts is expected to be based on the Marvel Comics team of the same name, an alliance of antiheroes and villains who reluctantly work for the government. Paper Towns‘ Jake Schreier will direct, with a script from Black Widow’s Eric Pearson. Production is expected to begin in the summer of 2023.

“I just made a joke about [how] it’s like Dungeons and Dragons, where you meet in a tavern and it’s like there’s a dwarf drinking a beer and then there’s like an elvish figure over there, we all come together and then there’s this ghost… it’s not gonna happen like that, I don’t think,” Harbour told ComicBook.com in an interview at last year’s D23 Expo. “But I think that’s one of the mysteries of the movie is what is their relationship, and as you say, there is a lot of exciting things as you wrap up the next phase in terms of sort of what their part of the whole universe is in this random, chaotic way. So, you know, we can’t say too much at this point, but they’re an exciting introduction of this team together again, that’s going to be a lot of fun.”

Why is Thunderbolts closing out Phase 5 of the MCU?

Marvel fans were surprised to learn at last year’s San Diego Comic-Con that Thunderbolts is set to be the final chapter of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Phase 5 of storytelling. Based on comments from Harbour surrounding the project’s story, it’s easy to see why.

“I have not read a script, but I have been told the arc of the story and how the story goes,” Harbour told ComicBook.com‘s Brandon Davis in an exclusive interview late last year. “It’s very cool. It’s very unique. It also has all this cool action and comedy, from what has been described to me, and then there is a bomb drop thing we add to the universe, which will be very exciting for the movie to do at the end of this particular phase that we’re ending.”

What do you think of Ayo Edebiri joining the cast of Marvel’s Thunderbolts? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

Thunderbolts is scheduled to be released exclusively in theaters on July 26, 2024.

h/t: Deadline