THUNDERBOLTS*: Taskmaster's Original Role In The Movie Has Been Revealed And It Will Blow Your Mind

THUNDERBOLTS*: Taskmaster's Original Role In The Movie Has Been Revealed And It Will Blow Your Mind

Thunderbolts* writer Eric Pearson has revealed Taskmaster's original role in the MCU movie, detailing an entire story arc for the character that also involved characters like Ghost and U.S. Agent...

By JoshWilding - May 05, 2025 10:05 AM EST
Filed Under: Thunderbolts
Source: Polygon

We first met Taskmaster in Black Widow, with a third-act reveal that he was really a she: Antonia Dreykov, the daughter of the Red Room's twisted leader. She found redemption during the final act and, somewhere between then and Thunderbolts*, became a mercenary for Valentina Allegra de Fontaine. 

Olga Kurylenko only shows her face once in the movie and gets a single line of dialogue before she's gunned down by Ghost. She and U.S. Agent pick her bones for the weaponry they like the look of, and the assassin is left to burn. 

Talking to Polygon, Thunderbolts* writer Eric Pearson confirmed that Taskmaster had a much different role in the script he wrote. It wasn't until he sat down to watch the first cut of the movie that he realised her entire story arc was gone (remember, Joanna Calo also took a pass on the movie). 

In his draft, Antonia gets "a pretty big subplot" and was set to bond with the Ant-Man and The Wasp villain who shoots her in the head in the theatrical cut. Pearson felt they had a lot in common, "as people who’d grown up in labs and been controlled that way."

"And Ava, having won her autonomy earlier in the chronology than Taskmaster, was kind of big-sistering her a little bit, in a way of 'how to break free and be your own person,'" he added.

"I mean, everyone in there has suffered a ton of tragedy," Pearson said of what she originally brought to the movie. "But she was kind of the ultimate tragedy. In the old tragedy rankings, she was at the top, and the other, bigger personalities — no one could get out of line, because no one could say 'I had it worse than you.'"

"On the comedy side, she was struggling with her own memory-loss stuff, and there was a gag where she just kept restarting the fight [with John Walker] and forgetting that they had made up and become friends."

"They would be discussing the plan of how to get out [of the vault], and she’d just go after him again, and they’d all have to pig-pile on each other, and pull her off, and be like, 'No, we know each other! We’ve had this conversation before!'" he continued, suggesting it might have been cut due to the similarity to Bob's own amnesia. 

As for why all this was cut, Pearson doesn't know, but it doesn't sound like any of this was shot. We can guess, of course, and it may have something to do with fans being so vocal about not wanting to see Taskmaster return to the MCU after Black Widow

There's only so much room in an ensemble, and Antonia's arc may well have been considered the most superfluous by filmmaker Jake Schreier.

Thunderbolts* is now playing in theaters.

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HOTSHOT
HOTSHOT - 5/5/2025, 10:46 AM
Okay? But that's not Taskmaster. At all.

Like yeah sure. You could've done more with her....but why not call her something else?
epc1122
epc1122 - 5/5/2025, 10:51 AM
@HOTSHOT - taskmaster is a big high profile name lol 😂
MakeAmericaGrea
MakeAmericaGrea - 5/5/2025, 10:51 AM
@HOTSHOT -

Woke commies want to spread The Message.
MakeAmericaGrea
MakeAmericaGrea - 5/5/2025, 10:53 AM
@HOTSHOT -

Disney Marxists love to bait and switch.

They tried to push Blade to thr background in his own movie so three women could be the main characters.
bobevanz
bobevanz - 5/5/2025, 10:53 AM
@MakeAmericaGrea - ugh, you're the worst.
dragon316
dragon316 - 5/5/2025, 10:53 AM
@HOTSHOT - I’m sure kang be beat by ants is not kang?
FrankenDad
FrankenDad - 5/5/2025, 10:59 AM
@MakeAmericaGrea - User Comment Image
HOTSHOT
HOTSHOT - 5/5/2025, 11:31 AM
@MakeAmericaGrea - *yawn*

It's clear you're baiting. We ain't biting, bud.
SonOfAGif
SonOfAGif - 5/5/2025, 11:32 AM
@HOTSHOT - Say what you will but the mask this time around was so cool looking.
HOTSHOT
HOTSHOT - 5/5/2025, 11:32 AM
@dragon316 - Oh I didn't care much for Kang either.
BigPhilbowski
BigPhilbowski - 5/5/2025, 12:03 PM
@MakeAmericaGrea - you still talking out your arse ya racist? Go on, off you go into hiding again. Still waiting on your justification for your racism
BigPhilbowski
BigPhilbowski - 5/5/2025, 12:04 PM
@bobevanz - don't worry, he'll shut up in a second now I've replied. Poor little racist has been running scared from me for a week since I baited him into outing himself as a racist
dagenspear
dagenspear - 5/5/2025, 1:20 PM
@HOTSHOT - That was an issue with the Black Widow movie did, using the name for no other reason than recognition, while giving the character no character or agency of her own, just a random trauma dump of a horrific backstory. Now, they've made their writing even more cheap and poor and weirdly sexist against women to me. They take the character, who they'd pointlessly genderswapped yes I think, but they made her not even a character and gave her no agency in the story, but gave her a horrific backstory of being blown up by a heroic character, not allowing her to express any anger against that character, was brainwashed and experimented on to be an assassin her near entire life and then she's just killed in her next appearance so quickly, for some reason by the character she has the most in common with. Even they were gonna kill her off, they didn't have to do that, they didn't have to tear her down in such a ridiculously negative way, and run counter to the entire point of the story with her in BW.
dagenspear
dagenspear - 5/5/2025, 1:23 PM
@MakeAmericaGrea - Ah yes, the message: That a women is a brainless object that is used and have no agency or character of their own and then are killed by other women without much weight to it. Look at all that wokeness and messaging.

Can you only speak in buzzword political talking points, without looking at what's actually happening.
UncleHarm1
UncleHarm1 - 5/5/2025, 3:21 PM
@HOTSHOT - One of my favorite comics of all time is all about Taskmaster dealing with memory loss, that is definitely the character. But it sounds like that was more of a punchline than anything, and they scrapped it anyway just to unceremoniously kill her... what a weird journey for the MCU version of this character.
HOTSHOT
HOTSHOT - 5/6/2025, 4:34 AM
@UncleHarm1 - I can't tell you anything about this Taskmaster's personality

Like at all aside from "tragic." They made her discount Winter Soldier.

And I don't even care about race swapping or gender swapping. All I want is for them to do something interesting with the character.They did not.
HOTSHOT
HOTSHOT - 5/6/2025, 4:36 AM
@dagenspear - Yeah like. You take a risk when you change the character in a major way, so make it worth it. Tell a compelling story.

I feel the Thunderbolts team did that. But Taskmaster did not.
dagenspear
dagenspear - 5/6/2025, 10:15 AM
@HOTSHOT - The MCU is so either non committal or not wanting to tell an interesting story.
UncleHarm1
UncleHarm1 - 5/6/2025, 11:39 AM
@HOTSHOT - I couldn't agree more. In the comics back in the day he's cocky because he has taken on the entire Avengers and did ok. There's a great bit where he's beating Deadpool by learning all his moves, then DP starts dancing like a ballerina which throws him off and he loses. Tell me that doesn't sound like MCU goofiness. Disappointment.

There's also a whole thing where his memory is too full from absorbing all these fighting styles, so every time he learns something new he forgets a part of his life. Meets a girl who he later realizes was his wife or something. The comic is weird tho he fights a European village populated by clones of Hitler.

I don't rant about comics much but I have always wanted to see that on the big screen. Don't care if he's a girl just stop with the boring
TheFinestSmack
TheFinestSmack - 5/5/2025, 10:52 AM
My mind is SO blown, I may never recover.
Vigor
Vigor - 5/5/2025, 10:52 AM
Now let's kill GAIA off in the same way
TheVisionary25
TheVisionary25 - 5/5/2025, 10:56 AM
@Vigor - or just depower her..

I thought the character was fine but they really should have made her powers temporary.
Vigor
Vigor - 5/5/2025, 11:00 AM
@TheVisionary25 - killing her is the same as depowering her, from a certain point of view 😉
TheVisionary25
TheVisionary25 - 5/5/2025, 11:01 AM
@Vigor - lol

One you could see develop the character while the other option doesn’t include that possibility
DannyBrandy20
DannyBrandy20 - 5/5/2025, 11:11 AM
@Vigor - Who is that?
Vigor
Vigor - 5/5/2025, 11:12 AM
@GodHercules20 - skrull from secret invasion who the writers lazily gave the powers of every avenger
Vigor
Vigor - 5/5/2025, 11:14 AM
@GodHercules20 - actually even worse. The powers of everyone who fought outside avengers HQ at the end of endgame.
SonOfAGif
SonOfAGif - 5/5/2025, 11:34 AM
@Vigor - I think that's what Sentry will do in Doomsday. I have this suspicion that Doom will recruit Gaia as she's easier to manipulate due to her hatred of humans.
dagenspear
dagenspear - 5/5/2025, 1:18 PM
@Vigor - And write a story cheaply again. Why celebrate that they basically wrote a story in a cheap way and want that to continue.
DannyBrandy20
DannyBrandy20 - 5/5/2025, 4:43 PM
@Vigor - giah

We all should forget about it

User Comment Image

User Comment Image
BeyondtheFuture
BeyondtheFuture - 5/5/2025, 10:52 AM
How can you be an expert assassin if you forget what you’re doing every 5 minutes?
slickrickdesigns
slickrickdesigns - 5/5/2025, 10:59 AM
@BeyondtheFuture - ever see Momento? Dude got it done. 🤣 might’ve been the wrong guy.
SonOfAGif
SonOfAGif - 5/5/2025, 11:34 AM
@BeyondtheFuture - Because she isn't Taskmaster. The tech is Taskmaster.
MGSSnake1988
MGSSnake1988 - 5/5/2025, 10:54 AM
Truly the first time the MCU wasted an entire character arc for a cheap shot. Unlike the five Avengers like Stark and Rogers who already had their redemption arcs, Natasha Romanoff's redemption arc in her own film is destroyed by this film.

Sure, this Taskmaster is the Deadpool from X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but there's actually something interesting with the character. Too bad Bond and Marvel screwed Olga Kurylenko so many times, at this point.
JustAWaffle
JustAWaffle - 5/5/2025, 12:21 PM
@MGSSnake1988 - first time?
User Comment Image
Nomis929
Nomis929 - 5/5/2025, 12:41 PM
@JustAWaffle - Thank You
dagenspear
dagenspear - 5/5/2025, 1:16 PM
@MGSSnake1988 - Now, they've made their writing even more cheap and poor and weirdly sexist against women. They didn't have to listen to fans who disliked it. Instead they take the character, who they'd pointlessly genderswapped yes I think, but they made her not even a character and gave her no agency in the story, but gave her a horrific backstory of being blown up by a heroic character, not allowing her to express any anger against that character, was brainwashed and experimented on to be an assassin her near entire life and then she's just killed in her next appearance so quickly, for some reason by the character she has the most in common with. Even they were gonna kill her off, they didn't have to do that, they didn't have to tear her down in such a ridiculously negative way, and run counter to the entire point of the story with her in BW.
SauronthePower
SauronthePower - 5/9/2025, 12:20 PM
@dagenspear - absolutely agree

To me, Drakov’s ‘exit’ was THE single dumbest and most disrespectful plot choice in an otherwise fairly decent scipt. Should have kept this treatment and replaced about 35% of Val’s, Mel’s, and Aexi’s comic relief running time schtick padding with THIS

Would have been SO much more endearing and also aligned FAR more closely with this movie’s overall macro emotional sensibilities
bobevanz
bobevanz - 5/5/2025, 10:54 AM
That would have been a funny gag, but it would have felt stale af more than three times. The rule of three for comedy must not be broken!
MisterBones
MisterBones - 5/5/2025, 10:54 AM
User Comment Image
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