It's common for a superhero movie to go through multiple iterations before cameras roll and, in some instances, they can change completely during production (see: Captain America: Brave New World).
Thunderbolts* writer Eric Pearson has been doing the rounds to promote the movie and, in an interview with ComicBook.com, revealed some of the ideas he dropped during the early writing stages.
We learned yesterday that U.S. Agent was once Thunderbolts*'s big bad, with John Walker undergoing a Hulk-like transformation. Pearson, however, was eager to unleash the Red Hulk.
"There was a point where I wanted Red Hulk to be the villain and [Marvel Studios] said, 'No,'" the writer confirmed. "I was annoyed and now I’m happy. The Sentry is the perfect person [for the villain role]. Any time you think you have it figured out and they tell you that you can’t do it, you are annoyed."
Pearson went on to say that, "There was a draft or two where Bucky was not involved, and there was a draft or two where Bill Foster was involved."
"Ava’s surrogate father, he comes in with [a role] bigger than a cameo and has a Goliath kind of moment and joins the team towards the end. I think there was something with two old guys, [Foster] and [Alexei], who are not exactly fathers, but acting as fathers."
"I forget why that was pulled out. Probably because he didn’t have the same background trauma that these other characters had, which was the unifying theme," he added.
Thunderbolts* director Jake Schreier recently revealed that he considered Man-Thing very early on, and Pearson shed new light on how the Werewolf by Night character was set to factor into the movie.
"Man-Thing, being an agent or some evidence that Valentina wanted to destroy," he explained. "He is such an unpredictable creature. It kinda didn’t fit and we couldn’t figure out a way that made sense. And you look at Man-Thing and you are like, 'What the hell is that?' We already had Bob, who was, 'What the hell is that?'"
"If you are dealing with Bob, why the hell is this normal-looking guy here versus this swamp monster? You are going to spend a lot of your time looking at the swamp monster as opposed to Bob, who needed a lot of attention because we needed to use that real estate between Bob waking up and Bob realizing he is the strongest thing that exists in the universe," the writer concluded.
We've learned a great deal about what Thunderbolts* might have been, but it's hard to shake the feeling that the movie we watched in theaters this weekend was the best possible version of this story.
"Thunderbolts* redefines superhero storytelling to deliver a moving and powerful story that does for the 'Multiverse Saga' what The Avengers did for the 'Infinity Saga' in 2012," we said in our review. "These heroes have earned their place on a Wheaties box."
Thunderbolts* is now playing in theaters.