Steven Yeun Drops Out of ‘Thunderbolts’

The hits just keep on coming for Marvel — or perhaps “hits” is not the right choice of words in this context, because those have been kind of hard to come by for the studio lately.

The latest update: Steven Yeun is no longer attached to Thunderbolts, one of Marvel’s biggest upcoming films, and its latest attempt to launch a new team franchise in the mold of The Avengers or Guardians of the Galaxy. Although Yeun was never officially announced, he joined the project last February. A few months ago, it was rumored that he was going to play the Sentry, a hugely powerful (but mentally unstable) hero who sometimes transforms into a dark alternate personality known as the Void.

Whoever Yeun was supposed to play, he’s not anymore, as he has now left the project. Yeun told Variety that he was no longer doing the movie because “time passing and things shifting kind of pulled me out of it.”

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Yeun did insist that Thunderbolts director Jake Schreier “is going to do an incredible job” and said that despite his leaving the film he still wants to do a Marvel movie.

Thunderbolts is based on a long-running Marvel series whose membership and central gimmick has gone through many variations. The very first version of the team was introduced in the 1990s during a period where the Avengers were all thought to have died. A new team called the Thunderbolts appeared to take their place — but little did anyone know that they were actually the evil Masters of Evil (led by Baron Zemo) in disguise. In the years after that, there were different Thunderbolts comics and concepts, including one team led by Norman Osborn (AKA the Green Goblin) where they were almost Marvel’s version of the Suicide Squad; a team of villains who were forced to perform missions by the government.

Even without Yeun, the Thunderbolts film still has an impressive cast including Sebastian Stan, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Florence Pugh, David Harbour, and more.

The next Marvel Cinematic Universe movie, Deadpool 3, is not scheduled to open in theaters until next July.