After years of watching the Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is gearing up to introduce another team to the silver screen. Thunderbolts is bringing numerous anti-heroes and former villains we’ve seen in the superhero franchise before to join forces, and among the other things we know about this Marvel movie is it’ll follow just a few months after Captain America: New World Order. Now word’s come in that a major star from The Walking Dead has been added to the cast.
Steven Yeun, who played Glenn Rhee on the flagship Walking Dead show from 2010-2016, has signed onto Thunderbolts, . Although the identity of the character he’s playing wasn’t shared, Deadline reports that the actor’s role is not only key to this movie, but could be significant in future MCU movies too. This is Yeun’s second comic book-related project, as he currently voices Mark Grayson in the animated series Invincible, which can be streamed with an Amazon Prime Video subscription and is returning for a second season towards the end of 2023.
Outside of the comic book media space, Steven Yeun drew acclaim for his performance as Jacob Yi in the 2020 movie Minari, for which he scored a Best Actor Oscar nomination. Yeun also caught attention last year for his role as Ricky “Jupe” Park in Jordan Peele’s Nope, and his other notable credits include Okja, Sorry to Bother You, Voltron: Legendary Defender and Tuca & Bertie. Yeun’s next movie lined up is Bong Joon-ho’s Mickey 17, which comes out in March 2024 and co-stars Robert Pattinson and Mark Ruffalo, the latter of whom plays Hulk in the MCU. Yeun is also leading the upcoming TV show Beef, which premieres to Netflix subscribers on April 6.
Thunderbolts’ eponymous team consists of Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier, Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova/Black Widow, David Harbour as Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian, Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, Wyatt Russell as John Walker/US Agent, Hannah John-Kamen as Ava Starr/Ghost and Olga Kurylenko as Antonia Dreykov/Taskmaster. The Thunderbolts cast also includes The Bear’s Aya Edebiri in an undisclosed role, and Harrison Ford as Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, the role originally played by the late William Hurt. It was revealed earlier this month that Ford’s Ross is President of the United States when we see him first in Captain America: New World Order, so presumably he’ll still be in the White House when the events in Thunderbolts play out.
Behind the scenes, Paper Towns’ Jake Schreier is directing Thunderbolts, and Thor: Ragnarok’s Eric Pearson wrote the script. While a filming date hasn’t been set yet, but Thunderbolts is slated for July 26, 2024, leaving MCU fans plenty of time to guess who Steven Yeun will play. You can ponder that mystery while you watch the Marvel movies in order with your Disney+ subscription.
