Steven Yeun to join Marvel’s Thunderbolts

Oscar nominee Steven Yeun has been cast in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Thunderbolts movie.

Steven Yeun has been cast in Marvel’s Thunderbolts movie. Picture: Noam Galai/Getty Images for Museum of Modern Art

The Walking Dead star Steven Yeun will join the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the upcoming Thunderbolts movie.

Yeun has been cast in a “significant” role in Thunderbolts, and may play a larger, expanded part in future projects in the MCU, according to Deadline.

Thunderbolts is scheduled to start filming in mid-2023 and will be released in July, 2024.

The details of the plot are being kept under wraps but if the story is to resemble its comic origins, it might centre on a group of anti-heroes who are sent on government missions.

Last year, Marvel confirmed the movie will feature a raft of characters who have appeared in previous MCU titles, including Black Widow and Hawkeye’s Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), Captain America’s Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Ant-Man’s Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), Falcon and Winter Soldier’s John Walker (Wyatt Russell), and Black Widow’s Red Guardian (David Harbour) and Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko).

Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who has popped up in Black Widow, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Falcon and Winter Soldier, is expected to be central to the film, as the morally grey Valentina Allegra de Fontaine. The character was most recently revealed to be the new director of the CIA and ex-wife to Martin Freeman’s character Everett K. Ross.

Steven Yeun is best known for his role on The Walking Dead. Picture: Gene Page/AMC

Harrison Ford has also been confirmed to be in the film, taking over the role of Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross from the late William Hurt. Ford will make his debut in an earlier movie, Captain America: New World Order.

The movie will be directed by Jake Schreier (Paper Towns) and Eric Pearson wrote the screenplay (Black Widow). Thunderbolts is to be the 35th movie in the MCU and the final film of “phase five”.

Yeun is best known for his 66-episode arc on The Walking Dead, as the doomed Glenn. On TV, he has also done a lot of voice roles in animated projects including Invincible, Tuca & Bertie, Final Space, Voltron: Legendary Defender and Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia.

But it’s on the big screen where he has been building momentum.

He was nominated for a Lead Actor Oscar for his stirring performance in Minari, a story about a Korean-American immigrant family in Middle America, and has had memorable roles in acclaimed films Nope, Sorry to Bother You, Okja, The Humans and Burning.

Next up, Yeun will be in Netflix dramedy Beef, which co-stars Ali Wong, and he is production on sci-fi thriller movie Mickey 17, reuniting with his Okja director, Oscar winner and Parasite filmmaker Bong Joon-ho.