Polygon.com / 11.05.25

How Thunderbolts* evolved from a Die Hard movie into a Breakfast Club movie

Like most movies, Marvel Studios superhero team-up Thunderbolts* went through a lot of drafts and a lot of development on the road to the screen. Polygon recently had a chance to talk to original Thunderbolts* screenwriter Eric Pearson about one of the biggest changes to his final draft  a character who was an important part of his version of the story, but who dies early in the final film. Thats far from the only change the movie went through in development: Pearson walked us through other early versions that leaned more on Die Hard than Little Miss Sunshine, with fewer characters, more vault shenanigans, and an explosive, weepy breakdown for John U.S. Agent Walker (Wyatt Russell). Heres what we learned from Pearson about how the script evolved, why The Breakfast Club and Being John Malkovich were big touchstones for the movie, and how he decided the MCU needed a Thunderbolts movie, even though he hadnt read many Thunderbolts comics. This interview has been edited for concision and c...
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