Thunderbolts Writer Eric Pearson Reveals Marvel Once Considered a Kang the Conqueror Post Credits Scene

Thunderbolts co-writer Eric Pearson revealed that Marvel Studios was, at least at one point, considering Kang the Conqueror as part of the post credits scene for Thunderbolts. The detail came out as the actors and creatives returned to the press circuit after opening weekend to talk more openly, in a spoiler way, about what did not make the film.

Those post release interviews usually cover things that were cut, ideas that were tried and dropped, how the ending changed and what happened with the post credits scenes. because the timeline here is a little interesting when they would have been writing this By then, surely, Marvel would already have been moving on to Doctor Doom, so if Kang was still being considered for this scene, it raises the question of whether the door to Kang was ever fully closed. I will get to that timing below.

Eric Pearson, Marvel's closer, laid out two alternate Thunderbolts post credits ideas

There were plenty of articles about this, including one from The Hollywood Reporter, but the one I am leaning on is IGN's interview with Eric Pearson. If his name is unfamiliar, it should not be. He is known internally at Marvel Studios as the closer, the writer brought in to finish scripts, add a couple of scenes and put the finishing touches and nuance on a screenplay that others have already largely written. He has worked on a lot of Marvel movies, and he co-wrote Thunderbolts.

In that interview, he said the team considered going a couple of different ways with the post credits scene. One idea was to reveal that Baron Zemo, who had not been seen since The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, had been behind everything and pulling the strings the whole time.

A Baron Zemo reveal would have been comic accurate but anticlimactic

That would have been a nod to the comics, where Baron Zemo founds the very first Thunderbolts team. But we had not seen him in quite some time, and with Avengers: Doomsday coming next, a Zemo reveal would have felt a little anticlimactic, pun totally intended, without some kind of setup for the future. So I am glad they did not go in that direction.

The other thing he reveals is that at least at one point they were considering a post credits scene involving Kang the Conqueror.

The Thunderbolts writing timeline may have overlapped with Marvel's Kang doubts

To get the context right, you have to understand when Pearson would have been working on the project. Thunderbolts filmed primarily in 2024 and was released in 2025, which means that by 2023 the script was being worked on, or had been for a while. I am not sure exactly when Pearson was brought in to finish the script; that is not public information. But the film would have been in active development during 2023, right as Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania was coming out.

That was also around the time, as it recently came out, that Robert Downey Jr. approached Marvel Studios in the summer of 2023, said he wanted to play Doom, signed on, and said he would only do it if the Russos agreed. It took another year, until the summer of 2024, for them to agree to direct the two Avengers films.

That is why the timing of a Kang post credits idea matters so much. It suggests there may have been a chance Marvel had already decided to pivot to Doctor Doom as the big bad of the Multiverse Saga, serving him up as the Secret Wars villain he has always been, while still not shutting the door completely on the Kang storyline, especially if he was going to be part of a post credits scene.

If the timing is ever revealed, there is another way it could have gone. Marvel Studios was reportedly already questioning whether Kang was the right villain for the Multiverse Saga and was worried about the Quantumania box office, unfairly blaming it on Kang instead of, say, the overediting and the mess some of that film became in post. The Kang post credits idea could have been written at that exact same time. Either way, as things changed, they pivoted away from it.

John Walker was going to be the Thunderbolts villain before Sentry

A lot about Thunderbolts was different early on. John Walker was originally going to be the villain, and they pivoted to Sentry instead. Pearson said that in the very first version of the script he read, Sentry was not even involved. He was brought on after that, and presumably by the second iteration of the draft they had changed things.

In that earlier version, Walker was somehow going to hulk out from super soldier serum at the end. That sounds a lot like Captain America: Brave New World, and to me it just does not sound like a great idea. It would have been at Valentina's directive, a time bomb situation where the whole time we would have been waiting for John Walker to completely lose control and become a monster, with the Thunderbolts having to take him down. I am so glad they went in a different direction. Without Sentry, it would have been a completely different film.

Pearson also talked about other changes, including Taskmaster originally sticking around, different iterations of the film and how the ending was once different.

Pearson stayed tight lipped on the New Avengers and Doomsday

When he was asked about the team now being the New Avengers, Pearson described it as Kevin Feige's long game for setting up Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars, which he said he did not know anything about. In a separate part of the interview, he said he was basically on speed dial for Marvel and was planning to meet up with them about scripting the two Avengers films, but at the time of the interview that had not happened yet.

He also would not discuss the post credits scene that actually made it into Thunderbolts. Asked about it, he said: "Hey, I didn't shoot it. I can't talk about it." So he was tight lipped about all the Avengers material, but very candid about the changes to Thunderbolts, which, at least at one point, included Kang the Conqueror.

Kang the Conqueror may or may not be done in the MCU

Some industry insiders with proven track records, people who have been around for four or five years, have said Kang might not be done in the MCU. But TMZ, of all outlets, was quick to come out and debunk that, saying its industry sources at Marvel said Kevin Feige has no plans whatsoever to revisit Kang the Conqueror.

Still, you cannot deny Kang was a major part of Phase 4 and Phase 5 of the Multiverse Saga, especially through his connection to the TVA, which Marvel is not going to abandon altogether. We just saw the TVA in Deadpool and Wolverine. So on some level, he is still there in the story and in the canon.

I am really curious what, if anything, Marvel will do to explain how his whole storyline led to us now having Doctor Doom, and what happened with the Kangs. The last we heard, at the end of Loki season 2, it looked like the TVA was hunting them all down. Marvel may just leave it at that, but there has got to be a bigger explanation for where Doom has been all this time.

For my part, I know they could have done some other cool things, but I think Thunderbolts is one of the best Marvel films in a long time, and I would not tinker with it at all. Would you have wanted the Zemo or Kang post credits scene, or do you prefer Thunderbolts exactly the way it is?