Eric Pearson knows his Marvel. After emerging from the Marvel Writers Program, the screenwriter worked on multiple short films for the Marvel One-Shots series before penning episodes of the Marvel’s Agent Carter TV series. Pearson became further immersed in the world of superheroes and the Marvel Cinematic Universe with the feature films Thor: Ragnarok and Black Widow. However, it’s the recently released Thunderbolts* that he sounds the most proud about. The movie finds some of Earth’s mightiest losers banding together to battle an omnipotent threat while confronting their own personal demons.
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In Thunderbolts*, Marvel Studios assembles an unconventional team of antiheroes—Yelena Belova, Bucky Barnes, Red Guardian, Ghost, Taskmaster, and John Walker. After finding themselves ensnared in a death trap set by Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, these disillusioned castoffs must embark on a dangerous mission that will force them to confront the darkest corners of their pasts. Will this dysfunctional group tear themselves apart, or find redemption and unite as something much more before it’s too late?
During a spoiler-filled interview with ComicBook, Pearson spoke about alternate Thunderbolts members, Sentry’s villainous turn, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, and more.
ComicBook: What was the mandate going into Thunderbolts*? What corner of the MCU did you want to explore?
Eric Pearson: No mandate. I came up with this on my own. There was no plan for a Thunderbolts movie. I found I had this window to make a movie. I had been doing Black Widow and had been able to be there, firsthand, to witness the rise of Florence Pugh and the great chemistry she had with David Harbour. I started talking with our producer, Brian Chapek, about future stuff. The Thunderbolts came up and I came up with a pitch to bring to Kevin Feige, which failed. I came up with a different pitch, which is essentially the version of this movie that exists now.
Some things have changed, some major moments have changed. One character changed quite a bit, but it was the same with Valentina wanting to dispose of all of her evidence. There is human evidence. She’s locking them down in this bunker and they are going to kill each other, but, wait, they figure it out. They have to work together and it doesn’t go so smoothly until they have to make an emotional decision to defeat a villain, who is actually not that bad. That’s what makes me so proud of this one, that it was a blank page. I loved Ragnarok. I loved Black Widow, but those things existed and were in motion. This was from a full stop to going.
How much leeway did you have over which members to include in the roster?
I don’t think there was anybody I asked for that we didn’t get. There was a point where I wanted Red Hulk to be the villain and they said, “No.” I was annoyed and now I’m happy. The Sentry is the perfect person. Any time you think you have it figured out and they tell you that you can’t do it, you are annoyed. There was a draft or two where Bucky was not involved. And there was a draft or two where Bill Foster was involved. Laurence Fishburne, Ava’s surrogate father, he comes in with [a role] bigger than a cameo and has a Goliath kind of moment and joins the team towards the end.
I think there was something with two old guys, him and David Harbour, who are not exactly fathers, but acting as fathers. I forget why that was pulled out. Probably because he didn’t have the same background trauma that these other characters had, which was the unifying theme.
Director Jake Schreier wanted Man-Thing on the team. Were there any characters that you kicked around that didn’t make the final cut?
Jake was very excited about doing Man-Thing. The other one was Zemo. Let’s get Zemo in there. We talked about it a lot. It wasn’t, “No, let’s deny the audience these people or deny our director this character that he wanted to use.” It was more like, “Let’s talk about it and find a way that doesn’t break the story we are trying to tell.”
What was very important to me is I found a story that wasn’t just a rehash of Suicide Squad. We have had two Suicide Squad movies recently and the last thing I wanted to do was, “Hey, we are going to put a team together.” Not because it’s a bad story, but it’s just because it is a story audiences are familiar with. They sit in there and say, “Oh, I know the moves of this story.”
Man-Thing, being an agent or some evidence that Valentina wanted to destroy… He is such an unpredictable creature. It kinda didn’t fit and we couldn’t figure out a way that made sense. And you look at Man-Thing and you are like, “What the hell is that?” We already had Bob, who was, “What the hell is that?” If you are dealing with Bob, why the hell is this normal-looking guy here versus this swamp monster? You are going to spend a lot of your time looking at the swamp monster as opposed to Bob, who needed a lot of attention because we needed to use that real estate between Bob waking up and Bob realizing he is the strongest thing that exists in the universe. That’s when you get to know the real Robert Reynolds, the one who has all this baggage and is trying to be a good person, but is held down by all his negative thoughts before he becomes too powerful.
We probably debated “capital N” versus “lower-case N” in New Avengers for hours. Every idea is talked about, but what we knew is we had a story that we liked, that had a theme that was cohesive and we didn’t want to break that just for a visual, fun character.
What kind of conversations did you have regarding Taskmaster’s death and the purpose that would serve?
Zero at all. That was the one biggest change. When they started shooting, I was back in Burbank working on Fantastic Four. When I saw the cut, the biggest change from my draft to later was Taskmaster’s death. Taskmaster lived out the movie in the last draft that I left them. I was as shocked as you were. I can only speculate, because I haven’t really talked to Jake in depth about this… Yeah, we did talk a little about this. He wanted to raise the stakes and have a shock moment, which also says, “This is a dangerous world.” We say these are bad people, but we see them be good quite a bit in this movie. Having a moment where it’s like, “They are coming from a moment where they have done heartless things…” But I did not make that call and I was quite surprised when I saw it.
How did you land on Sentry as the big band?
The pure Forrest Gump dumb luck. I guess you could say luck is being prepared and in the right place. When I was in the Marvel Writers’ Program in 2010 and 2011, you read a bunch of stuff. One of the things that I read was a Sentry comic. We had tried a couple of versions of the Thunderbolts* script where I always knew I wanted this thing to end with a hug, with a villain they cannot defeat. Ultimately, they are not that spectacular in their powers. That is not what makes them special. So, there is a physical villain they cannot beat. I wanted them to have an emotional breakthrough and end it with a hug.
There are a couple of versions where part of Valentina’s manipulation of them, for John Walker, she convinced him that his Super Soldier Serum was deteriorating and he needed updates. He needed updates. He needed to have monthly shots. What she was actually doing was implanting a “Hulk Bomb” or I think she even called them “A Bomb,” which is a very obscure character from the comics. But if she needed to create an event, she could set him off, so he would rage out into this big monster. It was fine, but it didn’t work the same. It was fun to make Walker detestable and then make him the person they had to save and have that be his big breakthrough of, “Oh, my God. What an asshole I’ve been.” At that point and realizing this wasn’t working after a couple of times, I just had this, “Wasn’t there a comic where Superman was blonde and he had Satan as his alter-ego?” I went back and read the comics and I was like, “Yeah, The Sentry is pure good and The Void is pure evil.” I was like, “What if it’s less vague as that and it’s more self-esteem and heroic ambition versus depression and self-loathing and isolation and loneliness?” That’s all our characters’ journeys lumped into one villain, one person, who can be their antagonist. It gave everything we wanted.
We didn’t want to deny the audience superhero-movie stuff because that’s part of why you see Marvel movies. So, what you get is instead of a big fight, is what I call… and it’s a wrestling term… “the Squash Match,” like when, “We have to introduce a new villain.” They bring him out and have him fight the nobody. In two minutes, he just demolishes them. We get to see The Sentry display these godly powers of, “Oh, my God. No one can beat him.” They are so screwed. And we get to have that fun Marvel action. Also, because the whole movie has been about trying to move beyond your past and making connections to people, not just judging them and rejecting them, it’s them being forced together. They slowly notice, “Oh, man. We are so similar.” That gives Yelena enough information and she has the courage to walk into the void, searching for him. It was luck that I had been in the writer’s program. Weirdly, Bob and The Void were a hard sell, at first. People were trying to cut him out for a while. They just had it be goons like Valentina’s soldiers. I was like, “No, this guy is the guy. He is the core of the movie.”
This movie serves as Sentry’s origin story. How did you want to present him?
The comic-book idea is very comic-book. “I’ve existed forever. All of you know me, but I am so powerful. My dark side is so powerful that I had to erase myself from all of your memories.” That’s way too big of an idea to get into one movie that’s not entirely about The Sentry. Taking some things from it – his memory loss and being able to play with it – felt like wanting to get to know Bob as a damaged person, who is dealing with so much.
Everyone can relate to feeling great sometimes and feeling like total trash some other times and really blaming themselves, and not thinking they are worth it. The idea of giving superpowers to that felt like a really fun way to explore all of our characters in the way they are going to handle their own personal traumas.
Do you view Thunderbolts* as a redemption story? Did the characters come out of this as better people?
I think so, for sure. I don’t think they are different. I think they are processing things better. I think that they have people who… The end credit scene is great. I didn’t write that. I’m jealous of it. I love that they are not a well-functioning team. They remain the Thunderbolts, even though they are called the New Avengers. They are bickering. They still feel inadequate. They are complaining about not being involved and branding and stupid stuff…. But they are together. I feel like that’s the big thing that is moving them forward, that they are able to take some pride in work. I still think that they are the same kind of complainy-ass people, which I love. I am so much more interested in taking the people no one is interested in and trying to do something fun and cool with them. It’s easy to take the Glengarry leads and make a sale. It’s harder to do that with your John Walkers and Ghosts.
Comic-book enthusiasts love to see heroes clash. That is what made Captain America: Civil War such a blast, where the Avengers duked it out with each other. What kind of rivalry does that ending set up between the two Avengers teams?
If you were to put a gun to my head, I don’t know if I could name the roster of the other team. You are talking about Sam Wilson and his own Avengers. I thought you were going to say Fantastic Four. It is interesting that all these groups are springing up. If there is going to be an Anchorman war at some point, where all the different news teams see each other in an alley and fight it out … It is a classic thing in Marvel and even in [Avengers:] Infinity War, where the Guardians of the Galaxy fight Tony and Doctor Strange and Spider-Man. I don’t want to say anything like that is going to happen because I don’t know what is going to happen. If they are going to do it, I want to watch it. It seems like a great device for a villain to succeed, when the heroes are distracted by petty sh-t. That is a villain like Victor Von Doom will take any advantage. If he sees you bickering amongst each other, he is going to move on you. So, yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised.
Even though you didn’t pen that end credit scene, it introduces the Fantastic Four into this universe. You also worked on the Fantastic Four: First Steps screenplay. What do you love about Marvel’s first family?
It’s interesting. When I came on, I had a lot of catching up to do. I had never really known them or understood what was great about them. It was really “Life Story” that got me. I believe it’s five different books, probably six issues per trade. It’s ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, and 2000s. Each character has a main POV. I believe the first one is Reed, where he somehow goes and sees Galactus is coming and there is nothing they can do to stop him.
For me, what I loved about that was this story about a world that looked up to these people, specifically as their saviors. Reed is the smartest man in the universe. Sue has the biggest heart in the universe and is this political problem solver. Johnny is so cool. Ben is the rock. And, then the idea of dread… that Galactus is coming and Reed has no plan. And spending time in that dread and the world reacting and how the heroes react to being the people who are supposed to save us, and not being sure how they are going to do it. The dynamics of that were, “We are supposed to know everything. Now, we are faced with this formidable problem.” I love that pinch of fear I had. We are all scared. I hope the movie still lets that breathe, that time of dread.
Thunderbolts* is in theaters now.
