"Thunderbolts? I will tell you, one time I was saying to Kevin [Feige], we were sitting on set together on one of the days he visited and I said, ‘You know, I really want to make Thunderbolts,’ and he said, ‘James, if Guardians does well you’ll be able to do whatever you want so we’ll see what happens."
That was Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn talking last year about his desire to make a movie based on Marvel's villainous squad known as the Thunderbolts. While that doesn't seem to be happening, despite 'Guardians' killing it at the box office, a dubious new rumor has surfaced about a Thunderbolts TV series heading to Netflix.
The story emerged on The Hashtag Show, so take it with a ton of salt. They don't go into any specifics on their rumor, making it seem even less credible. Some outlets are drawing a connection between this and a recent tweet by a Variety editor that says Marvel is planning to release a new "season or series" on Netflix "every six months", but it also specifically says they'll be from The Defenders group of Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, and Luke Cage. It mentions nothing about brand new shows.
Don't pay attention to the multiple outlets saying the Thunderbolts were created as a team of reformed villains, comparing them to DC's Suicide Squad (who aren't really reformed villain either). The two teams are very different. The Thunderbolts were part of a master plan by Baron Zemo (who will be seen in Captain America: Civil War played by Daniel Bruhl), to have villains posing as heroes to gain the public trust and ultimately replace the Avengers. The ruse went on for months until the Avengers came back and blew everything up. Some of the team took to being good guys and tried to reform, while others returned to crime. Later, the team underwent a number of changes, including adding members such as Luke Cage, Ghost Rider, Deadpool, Red Hulk, Venom, Crossbones, the Punisher, Bullseye, Elektra and more. Eventually they did begin working under the government to try and right past wrongs, but the most recent version was a team that operated on its own using lethal tactics. Perhaps because some of these characters have already been or will be introduced in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is where the rumor originates from.Whatever the case, this is pretty weak rumor at this point. One of the major problems Marvel has had with developing Iron Fist is that it could be a costly show in terms of special effects, and trying to mount a Thunderbolts series would be even bigger. This doesn't seem like the kind of project Marvel was aiming for out of their Netflix universe, but we shall see.
