Marvel Almost Made A Thunderbolts Member The Movie's Main Villain

This post contains major spoilers for Marvel's "Thunderbolts.*"

"Thunderbolts*," the latest entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, marks the beginning of the end for the Multiverse Saga. The MCU films and shows to come in Phase 6 will, in turn, bring the post-"Endgame" saga to a proper close. But first, director Jake Schreier had to deliver an action-packed, emotional redemption tour for the MCU's biggest misfits, including John Walker, aka U.S. Agent, played by Wyatt Russell. Indeed, although he's now a hero, he was very nearly the film's big villain.

As MCU fans may recall, U.S. Agent brutally killed a guy in public in "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier." He was in need of redemption, which is what he got in "Thunderbolts.*" Either that or he needed to lean into the bad guy thing; it truly could have gone either way. In an interview with Screen Rant, the film's co-writer Eric Pearson revealed that there was an earlier draft of the screenplay that saw Walker become the bad guy that the rest of the titular team had to rally against. Here's what he had to say about it:

"The original drafts of this had John Walker as the punching villain at the end. The idea was that part of Val's manipulation was that she had told him that his serum was wearing off, and she was doing these medications to keep him going. In reality, he was a time bomb; a Hulk kind of thing. There was going to be a bit of a 'Sun's getting real low' moment because from the beginning of this, it was like, 'I want to end our third act fight with a hug.'"

The "sun's getting low" comment is in reference to Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) calming down Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) in the 2015 billion-dollar MCU hit that was "Avengers: Age of Ultron." Setting that aside, it appears the early idea was that Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) would have manipulated Walker by dangling the loss of his superpowers as a bargaining chip. In the end, Pearson decided that Sentry, played by Lewis Pullman, made for a better threat.

Sentry/The Void is an experiment gone wrong, an attempt to manufacture a powerful superhero so that the U.S. government could defend itself against other super-powered beings. One flaw in many MCU movies is that their antagonists are often forgettable. Sentry, however, is arguably one of the MCU's best villains in years, even if he's not a true villain, so to speak. Speaking further about the decision to pivot to Sentry, Pearson explained why he shifted away from the John Walker villain idea in the first place:

"That version was kind of fun, but ultimately didn't work and didn't feel right tone-wise. I had already kind of layered in the whole 'Breakfast Club' thing, so I was like, 'I want someone that they can't beat in a punching fight and that they have to connect to in an emotional way.'"

In the end, Walker helps take Sentry down and is as much a part of the team as anyone else. The redemption for Walker and the rest of the Thunderbolts is made very public by the end of the film, as it's revealed that they're actually the New Avengers and not the Thunderbolts. So, rather than become a villain, Walker is technically an Avenger now. That's quite the difference. Russell's character could have been disposed of by the time this movie was over. Instead, he's currently poised to have a big future in the MCU extending to at least "Avengers: Doomsday," if not longer.

As is typically the case with Marvel projects, "Thunderbolts*" went through quite a few different iterations before settling on the version that made its way to theaters. In another script draft, for example, Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko) had a larger role connected closely to John Walker. Instead, Taskmaster wound up dying in the first act and wasn't even mentioned again. She, unfortunately, didn't get a shot at redemption as part of the New Avengers roster. Such is the way. 

"Thunderbolts*" is in theaters now.