Steven Yeun Breaks Silence on Exiting The Sentry Role for Thunderbolts

Marvel’s Thunderbolts got a major — and surprising — development earlier this week, when it was announced that Steven Yeun has exited the upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe movie. Yeun, who is best known for his performances on The Walking Dead and Invincible, has been attached to the film for nearly a year now, and was expected to portray the fan-favorite character of Robert Reynolds / Sentry. Yeun’s Thunderbolts departure definitely shocked Marvel fans, and the actor is now clarifying the reasons behind his exit. In a recent interview with Variety, Yeun confirmed that his exit was due to scheduling conflicts and delays amid last year’s Hollywood strikes, and revealed that “it took a lot of drafts on email to make sure that I conveyed sincerity of how sorry I was to have to back out.”

“I think for me, time passing and things shifting kind of pulled me out of it,” Yeun explained. “But [director] Jake [Schreier], I know, is going to do an incredible job.”

Yeun also revealed that he’s looking forward to the possibility of joining another Marvel project, flat-out admitting, “I wanna do a Marvel movie.”

“I think it’s too early to say that,” Yeun said, when asked what other Marvel project he would like to join. “I probably pissed off too many people leaving, so I’m just gonna say, ‘Thank you for having me.’ I have some ideas. But I heard if you put it out there, you’ll never get it, so I’ll keep it close to my chest.”

What Is Marvel’s Thunderbolts About?

Thunderbolts is expected to be based on the Marvel Comics team of the same name, an alliance of antiheroes and villains who reluctantly work for the government. The cast of Thunderbolts includes Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova, Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes / Winter Soldier, David Harbour as Red Guardian, Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, Wyatt Russell as John Walker / U.S. Agent, Hannah John-Kamen as Ava Starr / Ghost, Olgya Kurylenko as Taskmaster, and Harrison Ford as Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross.

“I just made a joke about [how] it’s like Dungeons and Dragons, where you meet in a tavern and it’s like there’s a dwarf drinking a beer and then there’s like an elvish figure over there, we all come together and then there’s this ghost… it’s not gonna happen like that, I don’t think,” Harbour told ComicBook.com in a 2022 interview. “But I think that’s one of the mysteries of the movie is what is their relationship, and as you say, there is a lot of exciting things as you wrap up the next phase in terms of sort of what their part of the whole universe is in this random, chaotic way. So, you know, we can’t say too much at this point, but they’re an exciting introduction of this team together again, that’s going to be a lot of fun.”

What do you think of Steven Yeun’s new comments about leaving Marvel’s Thunderbolts? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

Thunderbolts is set to be released exclusively in theaters on July 25, 2025.