THUNDERBOLTS* Screenwriter Was Shocked That His Big Story Arc For Taskmaster Was Cut From The Film — GeekTyrant

Geek Tyrant

06-05-2025

In a move that even surprised the guy who wrote a draft of the script, Marvel's Thunderbolts* axed a major Taskmaster storyline, and screenwriter Eric Pearson only found out about it the same way fans did: by watching the movie.
Pearson, who also wrote Black Widow , had no idea Taskmaster's arc was gutted until he saw an early cut of the film, Pearson told Polygon:
"It was decided after my work. 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…"
In the final film, Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko), the brainwashed assassin introduced in Black Widow , is abruptly killed off early on… shot in the head by Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) during the infamous vault sequence.
It's a moment that was clearly designed for shock value, but it also left some fans scratching their heads. Turns out, they weren't alone.
Originally, Taskmaster wasn't just another body to drop. Pearson revealed that she had 'a pretty big subplot' in his draft, one that actually gave her and Ghost an emotional throughline.
He explained: "As people who'd grown up in labs and been controlled that way," the two were supposed to form a bond.
'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.''
There was even a comedic twist to it. Taskmaster, still struggling with memory loss from her past trauma, would repeatedly forget she and Ghost were no longer enemies.
'There was a gag where she just kept restarting the fight and forgetting that they had made up and become friends. 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!''
Director Jake Schreier addressed the change in a previous interview, saying it was about injecting uncertainty into the story.
'Obviously, it's a big decision. We felt like a movie like this needed something like that, where you're like, 'Okay, if they'll do that, they could do anything,' you know, and you don't really know exactly where the thing is going to go. It needed a bit of shock or surprise."
Sure, the shock was there. But now that we know what was left on the cutting room floor, a layered, funny, and redemptive subplot for two of the MCU's most tragic figures. Iit's hard not to wonder what Thunderbolts* could've been if Marvel had let that story play out.
Would you have preferred the original Taskmaster-Ghost storyline?