“Thunderbolts*”, er, “*The New Avengers” is in theaters now and has reestablished some good will for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The movie is deliberately small-scale and low-stakes, following a group of lovable losers, led by Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) and Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), with an emphasis on character development over firepower. If you have not seen it, you really should.
And part of what makes the movie so special is the script, which was initially written by Eric Pearson, with later work by “Beef” creator Lee Sung Jin and “The Bear” co-showrunner Joanna Calo. TheWrap spoke to Pearson, an MCU MVP with credits on everything from the early Marvel Studios short films like “The Consultant” to TV like “Agent Carter” and feature films ranging from “Ant-Man” to “Black Widow.” (He also co-wrote a little movie called “The Fantastic Four: First Steps,” opening in just a few weeks.)
We talked about the various versions of the movie that were tried and ultimately scrapped. But who doesn’t love a good multiverse story?
If you have not seen “Thunderbolts*” yet, you will probably want to avoid this one for now. Let’s issue a formal spoiler warning and get on with it.
The Version with Adamantium
Pearson said that, coming off of his work on “Black Widow,” he put together an initial pitch. This pitch featured, in his own words, “a bunch of adamantium,” referring to the fictional metal that is bonded to Wolverine’s skeleton. “It was wrong,” Pearson said. “But they liked the idea of putting this team together.” This version was “big and sprawling and huge,” but Pearson admitted that he was putting it together in the wrong way. Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige told Pearson, “This group deserves a smaller, more contained thing.” That led to another version.
The Version Set Completely in the Vault
In the released “Thunderbolts*,” the various characters are introduced in an underground bunker, where they have been given assignments to kill one another. (This is part of a plot by Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, to get rid of her dirty laundry.) But at one point during the development, that was the entire movie. Following Feige’s directive, Pearson went the opposite direction and said, “What about a ‘Die Hard’ thing?” Pearson explained: “I really wanted to avoid doing ‘Suicide Squad’ again. Those movies have been done twice. The idea of an authority figure taking criminals and forcing them to do something like that, I didn’t want to do that story. The reverse that they are sent there to kill each other and accidentally form a team, that was fun. And then it was like, Well, let’s trap them below earth and basically give them a bunch of team-building exercises to escape.” When director Jake Schreier got the job of helming the movie, he started adding elements that would be in the eventual film, like the road trip and the showdown in New York. Can’t spend forever in that vault!
The Version Where Walker Was the Villain
Early discussions actually had the movie feature the Red Hulk, but not the Harrison Ford Red Hulk as seen in “Captain America: Brave New World.” Instead, Walker (Wyatt Russell) aka U.S. Agent, would turn into the creature as part of a move by Valentina Allegra de Fontaine. “Part of Valentina’s manipulation was that she had tricked him into thinking he needed constant medication but what she was really doing was planting a time bomb in him if she needed to set him off,” Pearson explained. “Taking Walker, the most antagonistic member of the team, the most abrasive, and then turning him into something that they choose not to kill, but to try and save.” Ultimately, the Hulk bomb plot did not “feel right.” Thus, they introduced Sentry instead, a character Pearson initially discovered in the Marvel Writers Program that he was a part of back in 2010 and 2011. “I always remember loving the kind of idea of, What if Superman had a version of himself with that was as bad as it was good?” Pearson said. Sentry is introduced in the vault, as a troubled young amnesiac named Bob (Lewis Pullman). The character encapsulated much of the rest of the movie – “heroic ambition versus self-loathing” – and made perfect sense for inclusion. Sentry was in, Hulk bomb Walker was out.
The Version Where Taskmaster Lived
One of the most shocking moments in “Thunderbolts*” is when, early on in the vault, Ava Starr aka Ghost (Hanna John-Kamen) actually completes her mission and takes out Antonia Dreykov aka Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko). It’s violent and unexpected and, it turns out, was not a part of the original versions of the movie. Not only did she live in Pearson’s version of the movie but she was involved in “a pretty big subplot” with Ava. “They were two characters that had spent their whole early life in labs, and Ava having a little bit more autonomy and big-sistering her out of like, I can help you adapt,” Pearson said. There was another, broader subplot with Taskmaster where, given her memory loss, “she kept forgetting where she was and attacking the team.” “That was a running bit but probably felt like a hat on a hat,” Pearson admitted.
The Version with Goliath
Another character that nearly made the final cut was Laurence Fishburne’s Bill Foster aka Goliath, who in “Ant-Man and the Wasp” was introduced as Ava’s mentor and father figure. Pearson said his character was back in the “John Walker becomes a monster” days. “He had a Goliath moment. I forget why it didn’t fit,” Pearson said. A shame that we didn’t have that moment, but untethered from Bill Foster, Ghost is even more sympathetic and, crucially, alone.
The Version with More Moments in the Void
The climax of “Thunderbolts*” takes place inside the Void – a space created by Sentry’s dark alter ego Void. In Pearson’s original draft, it was “more ethereal.” It was Schreier who made the space more “like ‘Being John Malkovich’ rooms that are very realistic and grounded, with boxed-in walls.” Pearson said that at one point this sequence was longer too, since we only see a few of the characters’ rooms. “If we could keep an audience’s attention, we could have everyone run their path,” Pearson said. They asked themselves questions: What would Ava see? What would Bucky see? And admitted that there were “probably a million different versions” of what wound up in the movie, with Yelena and Bob.
The Version with Scarlett Johansson (Maybe)
Obviously, when Yelena goes into her memories, it would have been easy to make the case for a Scarlett Johansson cameo. Johansson’s Black Widow Natasha was Yelena’s makeshift sister and she had to say goodbye to her after the events of “Avengers: Endgame.” (For those who don’t remember, Yelena was actually blipped and came back and had to learn about her sister’s death, which she blamed on Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye.) Pearson said that he could not remember if there was a draft that featured Johansson’s character. “I can’t remember if that was discussed and if it was not, then we are really stupid,” Pearson said. We’re erring on the side of “it was probably discussed,” if only to make sure Pearson does not devolve into his own void.
The Version Where They Stayed the Thunderbolts
While Pearson said his second “Thunderbolts*” pitch “was really the skeleton of this movie that remains now,” there was a big change towards the end. In Pearson’s script, Valentina announces the formation of the Thunderbolts to an anxious crowd of press and on-lookers. And Yelena leans in and tells Valentina, “You work for us now.” But when he presented the idea to Feige, Pearson received, what he called, “The best response I’ve ever gotten.” Feige turned to Pearson and said, “She should have introduced them as the Avengers.” “I was just thinking, If that’s the only note I’m getting out of this, take the money and run,” Pearson said. The writer admits that he does not know what the plan for the New Avengers is, but acknowledges that Feige “is making chess moves 10 moves ahead.”
“Thunderbolts*” (or is it “*The New Avengers?”) is in theaters now.
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