Eric Pearson has opened up about Thunderbolts* in a new interview, revealing behind-the-scenes changes to the original script. One key change was the removal of a subplot involving Taskmaster. While he supported the film’s final direction, he said the cut surprised him when he saw the completed version.
Eric Pearson on Taskmaster’s alternate fate in original Thunderbolts* script
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Eric Pearson said Thunderbolts* originally included a subplot between Antonia Dreykov/Taskmaster and Ava Starr/Ghost that was later removed.
“In my drafts, Antonia Dreykov/Taskmaster lived out the movie, and she had a bit of a subplot with Ava/Ghost,” Pearson said. “They’d both been raised in labs, and Ava big-sistered her into how to break free and be her own person.”
The finished version of the film replaced that arc with Ghost executing Taskmaster via headshot—something Pearson said surprised him when he first saw the cut. “The biggest change was Taskmaster taking that shot, and I was shocked,” he said.
Pearson explained that the original version intended to explore the shared trauma between Taskmaster and Ghost, both shaped by government experiments. He noted that the film initially emphasized their journey toward autonomy. Pearson developed the early drafts while transitioning from Black Widow, building on the backstories established in that film.
Director Jake Schreier and writers Joanna Calo and Lee Sung Jin took over the project as Pearson moved on to co-write The Fantastic Four: First Steps. By then, the film’s tone and structure had shifted. Pearson did not work on set during production and learned about the final change only after watching the completed edit.
The filmmakers decided to kill Taskmaster to raise the stakes. According to Pearson, Schreier told him the goal was to surprise viewers and reinforce that “there’s danger here. No one’s safe.” Pearson added, “Everything else was exactly where I expected it to be.” The deleted subplot remains one of the most significant changes from his original script.
Originally reported by Anubhav Chaudhry on SuperHeroHype.
