Thunderbolts* introduced us to Lewis Pullman's Bob, one of many people Valentina Allegra de Fontaine and O.X.E. experimented on in a bid to create a new, immensely powerful super soldier.
The movie revealed that Bob had an abusive childhood, and later turned to drugs before volunteering for Val's Sentry program. When she learned that he'd somehow survived, the CIA Director turned him into her Sentry. He initially battled the Thunderbolts at her behest, only for The Void to emerge and bathe New York City in darkness.
The team's intervention inside the physical manifestation of The Void pulled Bob back into the light, and the post-credits scene revealed that he can't risk using The Sentry's powers for fear of once again unleashing the darkness within.
Thunderbolts* made some big changes before it started shooting, scrapping Taskmaster's role and, as it turns out, changing Bob's MCU backstory.
"Bob was part of a strike force before he signed up for that progam of Valentina's," scooper @Cryptic4KQual has revealed. "He [lost] his memory due to the drugs. Valentina would go on to tell him that before all of it, he used to kill for the US. More drugs would've been the push that brought out the Void."
This would have made for an intriguing reveal, giving Bob the same Black Ops background as many of the other characters in this team. Thunderbolts* didn't suffer by not heading down this route (it's the year's best-reviewed superhero movie), but it's always fun to think about what might have been.
We recently spoke with Thunderbolts* director Jake Schreier about the movie. During our conversation, we asked whether a more monstrous version of The Void was considered for the final battle between the MCU's New Avengers and The Sentry's darker half.
"Yeah, we experimented with everything. It was an exploration process of what that should look like. I think Kevin [Feige] really had pushed us down this road of, 'Can we do something photographic? Is there any non-CG way to do this?' There isn't really, not in a language that would fit with the rest of the film. But we were trying to do something where he was photographed in all the scenes, and with the simplicity to it. He's never CG. There is rotoscoping going on, but it was just trying to think of what's the simplest thing we can do that will contain the most of Lewis's performance, and we'll feel the most of his performance in it?"
There is this sort of now history or pattern of CG that's been used in these movies sometimes, taking a turn and doing something a little simpler can be striking in the lack of the things that you tend to expect from that. But we imagined all of those things, and we referenced all of the elements of the comic books, and there are so many different, amazing ways that he's been portrayed."
"I think in our movie, some of the more monstrous depictions of The Void...we explored some of those, where we would do red eyes. And then all of a sudden, it felt like we had to swing so far in that ending in terms of being able to reach in and care for this person, or rescue them from this place, that it was always that balance of we want this to be scary or spooky. We want it to be striking, but we also don't want it to put it at such a remove that you don't feel that you could go and rescue Bob from within that space."
Would you have liked to see this alternate backstory for Bob in Thunderbolts*? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section.
In Thunderbolts*, Marvel Studios assembles an unconventional team of antiheroes - Yelena Belova, Bucky Barnes, Red Guardian, Ghost, Taskmaster and John Walker. After finding themselves ensnared in a death trap set by Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, these disillusioned castoffs must embark on a dangerous mission that will force them to confront the darkest corners of their pasts.
Will this dysfunctional group tear themselves apart, or find redemption and unite as something much more before it’s too late?
The cast of Thunderbolts* will be led by Florence Pugh as Yelena Boleva, Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes, David Harbour as Red Guardian, Wyatt Russell as U.S. Agent, Hannah John-Kamen as Ghost, Olga Kurylenko as Taskmaster, Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, and Lewis Pullman as "Bob."
Written by Eric Pearson, Lee Sung Jin, and Joanna Calo, and directed by Jake Schreier, Thunderbolts* is now available on Digital, 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and DVD, and arrives on Disney+ on August 27.