Steven Yeun Exits Marvel's Thunderbolts

The Invincible and The Walking Dead star has left the MCU film.

By Jenna Anderson

Marvel's upcoming Thunderbolts movie has lost one of its biggest stars. On Tuesday night, The Hollywood Reporter confirmed that Steven Yeun has dropped out of the forthcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe film, which is expected to begin production sometime this year ahead of a July 2025 release date. The report cites the delay of the production start date as the reason of Yeun's exit.

Yeun, whose work includes Invincible, The Walking Dead, and Nope, was first reported to be cast in Thunderbolts in early 2023. Thunderbolts would have reunited him with Beef director Jake Schreier and creator Lee Sung Jin, both of whom have been attached to the project. 

Who Was Steven Yeun Supposed to Play in Thunderbolts?

Although Yeun's role in Thunderbolts was never officially confirmed by Marvel Studios, Invincible and The Walking Dead's Robert Kirkman revealed in an interview in late 2023 that he would be the superhero character Robert Reynolds / Sentry. 

"He called me, he went in for a costume fitting," Kirkman revealed. "I don't think this is a spoiler, or anything that will get anybody in trouble. I don't know, maybe, we'll see. I don't care, I don't work for Marvel. What are they going to do to me? He called me and said, 'I just came back from a costume fitting for Sentry. I guess I only do superheroes that wear yellow and blue.'" Steven Yeun also voices Mark Grayson/Invincible in the Prime Video adult-animated series Invincible, which Kirkman is a creator for.

What Is Marvel's Thunderbolts About?

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. The cast of Thunderbolts 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.

"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 a 2022 interview. "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."

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Thunderbolts is set to be released exclusively in theaters on July 25, 2025.

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