Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross first turned up in the MCU way back in The Incredible Hulk, right at the start of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. A government bureaucrat working in the expanding field of superheroics, Ross would turn up in several Marvel movies after that, including Captain America: Civil War. He’s at Tony Stark’s funeral in Avengers: Endgame.
Ross was played by William Hurt. Unfortunately, Hurt passed earlier this year. According to a new episode of The Hot Mic With John Rocha and Jeff Sneider, Marvel plans to replace Hurt with another Hollywood legend: Harrison Ford.
This remains a rumor at this point, although Slashfilm is saying that it has been able to “independently confirm” the news. If true, this is major news. Between Star Wars, Blade Runner, Indiana Jones and much more, Harrison Ford is a major movie icon. To see him in the MCU would be a trip.
Harrison Ford could make his first MCU appearance in Captain America: New World Order
Thaddeus Ross is due to have a role in the upcoming Thunderbolts movie, as well he might: he is Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, after all. Thunderbolts is kind of Marvel’s answer to DC’s Suicide Squad: a team of antiheroes put together to take on the dirty jobs the Avengers don’t want to sully their hands with. At present, we expect the team to include characters like Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), U.S. Agent (Wyatt Russell), Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) and the Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan). We’ve seen some of these characters get recruited by Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Ross is part of the Thunderbolts leadership team.
That said, Harrison Ford will reportedly make his first appearance as Ross not in Thunderbolts but a few months earlier in the upcoming movie Captain America: New World Order, the first Captain America movie to star Anthony Mackie in the title role.
We’ll see if this rumor pans out, but it would certainly be a get for Marvel. Also of note: in the comics, Thaddeus Ross eventually turns into Red Hulk, and I would be very entertained to see Indiana Jones hulk out.
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