Marvel's Thunderbolts Had Bigger (And Funnier) Plans For Taskmaster And John Walker - SlashFilm (2025)

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This post contains spoilers for Marvel Studios' "Thunderbolts*."

Before "Thunderbolts*" was even released,Marvel fans caught on pretty quickly that one member of the "Thunderbolts*" wasn't going to make it to the other side of the end credits. Amidst all the talk of backstabbing and breakfast cereal, Olga Kurylenko's Taskmaster was swiftly killed off when the titular team got together, courtesy of a bullet to the head from Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen). As explained by director Jake Schrier, the former commander of the Red Room had to take the hit to create the shock and surprise needed to establish that this film was willing to do anything to keep its audience on the edge. Brief as her appearance might be, though, it turns out that in earlier drafts, Antonia Dreykov's involvement was much larger and brought extra laughs at the expense of junior varsity Captain America, John Walker (Wyatt Russell).

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Screenwriter Eric Pearson told Polygon he had mapped out that her previous brainwashing would result in a fragmented memory and occasionally see her squaring off with Walker in the film, making for an unsettling on-again, off-again friendship. "On the comedy side, she was struggling with her own memory-loss stuff, and there was a gag where she just kept restarting the fight and forgetting that they had made up and become friends," explained Pearson. "They would be discussing the plan of how to get out [of the vault], and she'd just go after him again, and they'd all have to pig-pile on each other, and pull her off, and be like, 'No, we know each other! We've had this conversation before!'"

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In a dose of bittersweet irony, it turns out the person responsible for killing Taskmaster in the film initially had a very close bond with her, according to Pearson. In the original story, kindred spirits are found between Antonia and Ava, aka Ghost, who have both been used as puppets from a young age and end up finding a sisterly link in their adventure. Described as "a pretty big subplot," Pearson revealed they connected "as people who'd grown up in labs and been controlled that way." By going on this journey of escaping their restraint, one was able to help the other. "And Ava, having won her autonomy earlier in the chronology than Taskmaster, was kind of big-sistering her a little bit, in a way of 'how to break free and be your own person.'"

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Unfortunately, this thread was clipped along with the character at the center of it, much to Pearson's surprise. "When I sat down to watch the first cut, one thing was totally different and shocked the hell out of me, and it was that. Everything else, I was like, 'Yeah, that's the movie that I wrote!'" Unfortunately, we'll never see that bond form, but hopefully whenthe former Thunderbolts return to the MCU in "Avengers: Doomsday,"we'll see the New Avengers be a stronger team, which they'll undoubtedly need to be when they take on Marvel's next big bad. Let's just hope they're up to the task.