Sebastian Stan has been appearing in the Marvel Cinematic Universe for nearly the entirety of its existence, having debuted as Bucky Barnes in Captain America: The First Avenger and racked up nine projects so far, including the Disney+ subscription-exclusive shows The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and What If… ?. Next up, he’ll be seen in 2025’s Thunderbolts*, the 36th of the Marvel movies in order. Earlier this year, it was reported that the upcoming Marvel movie went through major rewrites, and while Stan has confirmed this is indeed the case, he explained why this was a great thing in the end.
During Stan’s appearance on Happy Sad Confused to talk about his 2024 movies The Apprentice and A Different Man, host Josh Horowitz asked if it was “fair to say” that there’s “a much different version that we’ll never see of Thunderbolts*,” and the actor responded:
There were a couple reiterations from what I've heard. There was a script that we had before the strike and then the one we ended up with. And I do feel like we ended up in a better spot. 100%. I love working with Jake Schreier, I feel like what he brought to this movie is a whole other tone I think we haven't quite seen yet. It's funny, but it's also real, and it just has the right balance of everything. I love working with him. And I think we only discovered that by them actually having more time to work on it, which wouldn't have happened if we went a year ago.
Originally Thunderbolts* (yes, that asterisk is intentional) was written by Thor: Ragnarok’s Eric Pearson, but in March 2023, Beef’s Lee Sung Jin shared that he was penning a new draft of the screenplay. Then this past February, following the writers strike and actors strikes delaying the movie’s production from the originally-intended June 2023 start date, it was revealed The Bear’s Joanna Calo was rewriting the Thunderbolts* script. According to THR, previous drafts focused on the titular team going on a mission where they were supposed to die.
Obviously Sebastian Stan can’t comment on any specific plot details beyond what’s been shown in the Thunderbolts* trailer, but he believes that the version of the movie that was ultimately shot from late February to mid-June was the best iteration to have move forward. While the strikes negatively impacted a lot of Hollywood projects, Stan believes the delay in getting cameras rolling on Thunderbolts* was actually beneficial since it allowed the team to arrive on the product that audiences will see on the big screen next year. Stan has also enjoyed his with director Jake Schreier, commending the filmmaker for hitting the right kind of balance for this Marvel movie.
Sebastian Stan is joined in the Thunderbolts* cast by Florence Pugh, David Harbour, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Wyatt Russell, Hannah John-Kamen, Olga Kurylenko, Lewis Pullman and Geraldine Viswanathan, among others. The superhero blockbuster hits the silver screen on May 2, 2025.
