Taskmaster had very different role in original Thunderbolts* script

SPOILERS for Thunderbolts* (or whatever we’re supposed to call it now). The recently released film stars Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova, Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes, Wyatt Russell as John Walker, David Harbour as Red Guardian, Hannah John-Kamen as Ghost, and Olga Kurylenko as Taskmaster. Most movies undergo significant changes from the script to the screen, and Marvel’s Thunderbolts* is no exception, with Taskmaster receiving the biggest change.

It wasn’t exactly a massive surprise given her absence from much of the trailer footage, but Taskmaster was killed off very early after getting shot in the head by Ghost/Ava. However, in the original script by Eric Pearson, the character survived and had a much bigger role to play. When Pearson jumped ship to work on the script for The Fantastic Four: First Steps, he handed over scriptwriting duties to Joanna Calo and didn’t find out about the change until he watched the film’s first cut.

“It was decided after my work,” Pearson told Polygon. “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!’ But that decision…“

Pearson isn’t sure why the change was made, “But if I were to guess, it would be to get the reaction that I had as an audience member, like, ‘Whoa, we’re upping the stakes, we’re doing something drastic really fast, and we’re putting everybody on edge.’” The original story arc found Taskmaster bonding with Ghost as they’d both been raised in labs and trained as weapons. “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,’” Pearson said.

There also would have been a running joke of Taskmaster trying to assassinate John Walker after forgetting they’d become friends. “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,” Pearson explained. “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!’“

Pearson wondered if this was ditched due to Bob’s (Lewis Pullman) own memory issues. “That could contribute as another reason why they chose to bring her out of the movie,” he said. “Bob was obviously having memory issues as a big part of his character.“

Thunderbolts* seems to have some decent buzz around it, but box office is a little disappointing so far. Our own Chris Bumbray said the film is a “significant step-up” from Captain America: Brave New World, but he cautioned that “it’s not the game-changer some of the breathless early junket reviews suggest.” However, Bumbray did enjoy the movie, saying he “had a better time with Thunderbolts than any other Marvel movie (outside Deadpool & Wolverine) in recent memory.” You can check out the rest of his review right here, and don’t forget to let us know what you thought of the film as well!