Before Top Gun: Maverick star Lewis Pullman was cast as the MCU’s version of The Sentry in Marvel’s Thunderbolts*, that golden-caped role belonged to The Walking Dead and Invincible star Steven Yeun.
While Yeun eventually had to step away due to scheduling issues caused by the 2023 Hollywood strikes, a new piece of concept art gives fans a peek at what could have been.
The artwork, currently making the rounds on social media, shows Yeun fully suited up as Bob Reynolds, aka The Sentry. The design looks largely the same as what we saw in the film, and we see that Yeun would’ve sported the blonde hair.
While I loved Pullman in the role, I think that Yeun would’ve been great as well. It’s not hard to imagine him playing that character. He would’ve brought something complex to the role of the unhinged “Golden Guardian.”
Of course, it wasn’t meant to be. In a past interview, Yeun reflected on walking away from the project, saying:
“I think for me, time passing and things shifting kind of pulled me out of it. But Jake [Schreier], I know, is going to do an incredible job. I wanna do a Marvel movie. It took a lot of drafts on email to make sure that I conveyed the sincerity of how sorry I was to have to back out.”
As for whether he’ll ever suit up in the MCU again, Yeun kept things coy:
“I think it’s too early to say that. 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.”
With Thunderbolts* leading directly into Avengers: Doomsday, it’s Pullman now carrying the weight of Reynolds’ fractured psyche. But that doesn’t mean Yeun is off the board. I imagine that he’s still on Marvel’s casting list.
Would you have preferred Yeun as The Sentry, or are you sold on Pullman’s take? Either way, it’s wild seeing a glimpse of the multiverse version we almost got.
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