Steven Yeun Leaves Thunderbolts

Movies

Marvel’s next superteam is down one member. Deadline reports that Steven Yeun has exited the upcoming MCU film Thunderbolts due to “scheduling conflicts” created by production delays in the wake of the actors’ strike. Yeun was set to play Sentry, a hugely powerful hero from the comics. Thunderbolts also stars actors who played minor characters from previous Marvel films, including Sebastian Stan, Florence Pugh, David Harbour, Olga Kurylenko, Hannah John-Kamen, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Wyatt Russell, plus Harrison Ford. Directed by Jake Schreier and written by Lee Sung Jin and Eric Pearson, Thunderbolts is currently scheduled to hit theaters on July 25, 2025.

What’s curious about this story is that, despite citing scheduling conflicts as the reason for his departure, Steven Yeun doesn’t have anything else on his schedule. His next two movies – Mickey 17, a sci-fi film from Parasite director Bong Joon Ho, and Love Me, a sci-fi romance also starring Kristen Stewart – have both finished filming and will be released this year. Aside from voicing another season of Invincible, which I can’t imagine would interfere enough for him to drop out of the film, I don’t see any conflicts. It’s possible he’s got other projects that haven’t been announced yet or things he’s circling, but part of me thinks he’s using that as an excuse to jump a sinking ship. Whether that ship is Thunderbolts or the MCU itself could go either way. There have been rumors that Marvel is going to cancel some productions, and Thunderbolts seems like one of the easier ones to scrap; it hasn’t started filming yet, it has zero buzz, and it stars a bunch of second-string characters who don’t really need their own movie. (I like Bucky, but he’s not a lead.) Maybe Yeun got a sense that Thunderbolts was headed for the trash can and freed himself up as early as possible. Or maybe it’s the general downward trend Marvel is on, with each successive movie or show more embarrassing than the last. Or it could be that it really is scheduling conflicts, and we just don’t know what else he’s signed on for yet.