Although William Hurt passed away in March at the age of 71, the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross will go on. It was confirmed in October that Harrison Ford will take over the role for at least two upcoming Marvel movies, with this marking the Han Solo and Indiana Jones actor’s first foray into the superhero genre. As for why Ford decided to join the MCU, the answer he gave was, quite frankly, classic Harrison Ford.
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Harrison Ford will debut as Thunderbolt Ross in Captain America: New World Order, and then he’ll return a few months later for Thunderbolts. Obviously Ford coming into the MCU is a major get for the franchise, and here’s the simple answer the actor gave The Playlist’s Yellowstoners podcast when he was asked why he decided to collaborate with Marvel Studios:
Hey, look, I’ve done a lot of things. I now want to do some of the things I haven’t done.
Harrison Ford is never one to mince words, so if his only reasoning for succeeding William Hurt as Thunderbolt Ross is because he wanted to try something new, we can take his word for that. Ford now joins a small lineup of MCU recastings, with others including Don Cheadle taking over as James Rhodes/War Machine from Terrence Howard, and Mark Ruffalo taking over as Bruce Banner/The Hulk from Edward Norton. In this case though, Thunderbolt Ross’ recasting came about due his previous actor dying, so the fact that Marvel Studios made the effort to recruit Ford rather than use a new/different character indicates that there are likely big things in store for Ross in Phase 5.
What exactly will that be? Officially speaking, we don’t know yet. However, in the comics, there was a time when Thunderbolt Ross became Red Hulk, which has led to speculation if we could see Ford’s version of the character undergo that transformation. When Ford was asked if he would wear a grey motion capture suit for any of his upcoming MCU appearances, the actor “simply smiled and replied with a ‘zipped-lips’ sign.” Marvel is notorious for doing its best to ensure that its actors don’t share spoilers, so we’ll just have to keep waiting for more information regarding whether Ford playing Red Hulk through motion capture is actually in the cards.
For Captain America: New World Order, Harrison Ford will be joined by Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson, Danny Ramirez as Joaquin Torres, Carl Lumbly as Isaiah Bradley, Shira Haas as Sabra and Tim Blake Nelson as Samuel Sterns, who we’ll finally see as The Leader following his appearance in The Incredible Hulk. Julius Onah is directing off a script written by The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’s Malcolm Spellman and Dalan Musson. Moving to Thunderbolts, Ford’s costars include Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes, Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, Hannah John-Kamen as Ghost, Wyatt Russell as U.S. Agent, Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova, David Harbour as Red Guardian and Olga Kurylenko as Taskmaster. That movie is being helmed by Jake Schreier, with Thor: Ragnarok and Black Widow’s Eric Pearson writing the script.
Captain America: New World Order comes out on May 3, 2024, and Thunderbolts will follow on July 26 of the same year. In the meantime, Harrison Ford fans can watch him playing Jacob Dutton in the freshly-premiered Yellowstone prequel series 1923 with their Paramount+ subscriptions.
