The ongoing Writers Guild of America strike has now resulted in Marvel Studios pressing pause on several major productions, including the upcoming ensemble movieThunderbolts. The team-up outing was due to begin filming next month in Atlanta, butDeadlinehas revealed that the crew have now been notified that production will not continue until “the strike has ended.”
AlongsideThunderbolts, the studio has also decided to stop production on the upcoming television seriesWonder ManstarringAquaman’sYahya Abdul-Mateen II as an actor who gains superpowers. Much likeThunderbolts,Wonder Manwas expected to begin shooting next month in Los Angeles and will commence production when the strike comes to an end. Both Marvel projects join theBladereboot, production on whichwas halted earlier this month.
Of course, with Marvel being the major franchise that it is, several projects have already begun filming, includingDeadpool 3. But this has come with its own issues. It has now been revealed that known improviser Ryan Reynolds willnot be able to quip as muchas he’d like due to the actor being credited as a writer on the project and therefore obligated not to adjust any lines of dialogue.
The 2023 Writers Guild of America strike began on May 2 after negotiations between the WGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers broke down. The WGA is calling for better working conditions for writers, and in particular the issues surrounding the residuals amid the growing popularity of streaming and the emergence of artificial intelligence tech such as ChatGPT.
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Thunderbolts Currently Has a Release Date of June 2024
How much this pause in production will affect the release ofThunderboltsandWonder Manremains to be seen.Thunderboltscurrently has a release date scheduled for July 2024, and willfollow a group of heroes and antiheroes, including Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), U.S. Agent (Wyatt Russell), Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), Red Guardian (David Harbour), and Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko).
Thunderboltshasalready undergone some major rewrites, with known insider Jeff Sneider revealing “that they scrapped the other guys draft. One of the problems with thatThunderboltsdraft was that it had a similar problem to whatSuicide Squadhad, the David Ayer one, in that it was too focused on theBlack Widowcharacters who are going to be inThunderboltsand it wasn’t an equal enough for the team. It just very much emphasized the characters we already knew."
Directed by Jake Schreier and written by Eric Pearson and Lee Sung Jin,Thunderboltsis due to land in theaters on July 31, 2025 as part of Phase Five of the MCU.
As forWonder Man, the series will be based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name and is set to star Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Ben Kingsley, Demetrius Grosse, Ed Harris, and Lauren Glazier. The series is expected to debut on Disney+ during the 2023–24 television season.
