Marvel Comics has played around with the Thunderbolts concept a bit in the past few years but there’s also been talk of a film for much of that time as well. Not a lot has gone on for it – I don’t think they even put out a title card for it at any point – but now it seems like some new movement is out there for it.
The property, which is basically a kind of Suicide Squad when you look at it from 30,000 feet, has now brought on Jake Schreier to direct the film. We knew previously that Eric Pearson, who worked on the Black Widow film, is working on a screenplay for Marvel Studios with Kevin Feige naturally producing it.
Schreier doesn’t have a huge slate of credits behind him but he got a lot of attention for Robot & Frank about a decade ago and Paper Towns and has an A24-backed series wrapping up for Netflix with Beef.
Deadline updated on the director signing on and noted that some of the characters who could be used include Baron Zemo, Yelena Belova, Ghost, Taskmaster, The Abomination, US Agent and the Winter Soldier. And with the group potentially overseen by General Ross, there’s potential to do something new there with William Hurt’s recent passing.
Plot concept: The story revolves around a group of villains who are sent on missions commissioned by the government.
