Steven Yeun Clears up Why He Abandoned Sentry Role in ‘Thunderbolts’: ”I Probably Pissed Off Too Many People Leaving”

In June 2022, the ‘Thunderbolts’ film was confirmed to be in the works. Jake Schreier was set to direct, and Eric Pearson writing the script. Production was slated to kick off in Summer 2023, and the cast was expected to include actors already associated with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with Marvel Studios making efforts to ensure their availability. Then, the SAG-AFTRA strike happened and paralyzed the industry for more than 3 months. Plenty of projects in Hollywood suffered, and MCU, whose projects are not exactly standalone and are all basically interconnected, suffered the most.

In September Kevin Feige announced that David Harbour, Hannah John-Kamen, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Sebastian Stan, Wyatt Russell, and Olga Kurylenko would be reprising their roles as Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian, Ava Starr/Ghost, Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier, John Walker/U.S. Agent, and Antonia Dreykov/Taskmaster, respectively, in the film. He also confirmed that Yelena Belova would be a part of the Thunderbolts team in the film. It wasn’t until February 2023, however, that the first confirmation that Yeun was going to play Sentry arrived, and the reactions were…well mixed.

It’s hard to imagine Yeun as a crackhead turned borderline cosmic superhero, and even the most hardcore fans had trouble making sense of it. Eventually, the first reaction simmered down until it was announced that Yeun would be leaving the role. If your first thought was that he is leaving the role due to fan backlash, you would be wrong. In an interview with Variety Yeun admitted that his number one reason from dropping out of the role were scheduling issues due to the last year’s strike.

I think for me, time passing and things shifting kind of pulled me out of it,” Yeun explained. “But Jake [Schreier], I know, is going to do an incredible job.

Yeun is also however adamant that he wants to do a Marvel movie, but is afraid that people involoved with them won’t forget this faux pass all that easily.

I think it’s too early to say that. I probably pissed off too many people leaving, so I’m just gonna say, ‘Thank you for having me.’

We might see Yeun in a different role sometime in the future, if one thing is for sure it’s that Marvel Studios has plenty of projects in the oven, both live-action and animated. ‘Thunderbolts’ film would start production in March or April 2024.

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