Sebastian Stan's Bucky Barnes will lead the Thunderbolts, Kevin Feige says

(Image credit: Marvel Studios/Disney)

Sebastian Stan's Bucky Barnes is set to lead the Thunderbolts, says Marvel boss Kevin Feige.

"What's fun about that, and I sort of said this at D23, is that they are barely heroes," Feige told Entertainment Weekly, speaking on the upcoming Thunderbolts movie. "None of them would consider themselves heroes. When your de facto leader is Bucky Barnes, that's sort of all you need to know. That's the trickle down."

The Thunderbolts line-up sees Florence Pugh return as Yelena and Wyatt Russell back as John Walker. David Harbour and Olga Kurylenko are set to reprise their Black Widow roles as Alexei Shostakov, AKA Red Guardian, and Antonia Dreykov, AKA Taskmaster, respectively. Hannah John-Kamen returns as her Ant-Man and the Wasp role as Ava Starr, AKA Ghost. The Bear star Ayo Edebiri also joined the cast in a mystery role.

Harrison Ford will also star as General Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross, taking over for the late William Hurt. It's Ross who puts the Thunderbolts together.

The movie was first announced at San Diego Comic-Con, with the full cast being released at D23, and was set up in not one but two post-credit scenes: Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) recruits the disgraced John Walker for an unknown project at the end of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, before doing the same with Yelena in the post-credits scene after Black Widow.

Thunderbolts is set to premiere July 26, 2024, as part of Marvel Phase 5. For more, check out our list of all the new superhero movies flying your way in 2023 and beyond.

Lauren Milici is a Senior Entertainment Writer for GamesRadar+ based in New York City. She previously reported on breaking news for The Independent's Indy100 and created TV and film listicles for Ranker. Her work has been published in Fandom, Nerdist, Paste Magazine, Vulture, PopSugar, Fangoria, and more.