Credit: Marvel StudiosMarvel has officially been further impacted by the Writers Guild of America Strike, something they had hoped to avoid.
It was recently announced that the Blade reboot had been halted, the Marvel-adjacent Amazon projects Silk: Spider Society and Spider-Man Noir had also halted, while Deadpool 3 started filming a couple of days ago. Marvel had hoped that their projects wouldn’t be affected by the strike, but it’s just been confirmed that another project has been delayed.
Thunderbolts is the anticipated team-up of Phase 5 including the Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), John Walker/U.S. Agent (Wyatt Russel), Yelena Belova/Black Widow (Florence Pugh), Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian (David Harbour), and Gen. Thaddeus E. “Thunderbolt” Ross (Harrison Ford).
Originally, Thunderbolts was set to begin filming in Atlanta in three weeks and was slated for a July 2024 release with an original plan to move forward despite the WGA strike. According to Deadline, the project has officially delayed filming for the time being. The studio is hopeful to resume production after the strike, but there’s been no word on how this will affect its release.
With several 2023 MCU projects having already been delayed this year, including The Marvels and Disney+’s Secret Invasion, it’s yet another blow to fans. Phase 5 was already off to a rocky start with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023) receiving the lowest scores of any Marvel movie yet. Following the disappointing release, harassment allegations against Kang actor Jonathan Majors came out, creating concerns about the direction Phase 5 would end up taking.
As of yet, Marvel has made no official announcement about Majors, although they have let go of Jeff Loveness, writer of Quantumania and Avengers: Kang Dynasty, and have kept Majors’s involvement in future projects quiet. It’s unclear how the Thunderbolts delay will change Phase 5 or if any other upcoming projects will also be affect by the writers’ strike. The strike has already affected several other television and film projects, and it’s likely to halt or delay more the longer it continues.
Stay tuned for the latest updates on Disney, Marvel, and the strike from Inside the Magic.