It seems that, in order to make Thunderbolts work for Red Guardian’s David Harbour, Marvel Studios had to work with Netflix to make sure the actor was available to both parties.
Harbour was first introduced into the MCU in 2021’s Black Widow as Red Guardian, a former father figure to both Natasha Romanoff and Yelena Belova. His next appearance in that world will be in 2024’s Thunderbolts, where he’ll be a member of the titular team.
Of course, plenty of fans also know the actor as Hopper in Netflix’s Stranger Things. Needless to say, he certainly has a fan base.
Now it looks like the actor is going to have a busy year in 2023 since Harbour will be portraying two of his biggest roles back-to-back over the course of a few months.
Splitting David Harbour Between Marvel and Netflix
While speaking with Collider, Black Widow and Stranger Things star David Harbour revealed that Marvel and Netflix would be sharing his time while working on both Thunderbolts and the final season of his hit streaming show.
Harbour noted how "next year is going to be... very tough" but assured that he "love[s] both" of the characters he portrays between the two studios:
“Yeah, next year is going to be a very tough year for me schedule-wise... it’s going to be crazy... [Red Guardian and Hopper] are two things that I love. I love both characters very much."
The star elaborated on how Marvel and Netflix are "going to have to sort of share [him]" so that he can work on both projects:
“It’s going to have to be a back-and-forth with me. They’re going to have to sort of share me. And so it is kind of like, I don’t know exactly how they’re working it, but it’s a week on, week off, two weeks on, two weeks off, something like that where I would go back and forth. They both are being shot in Atlanta. That may have also been structured in a certain way, but yes, it is helpful. So I can just literally shoot a scene in Stranger Things and get in my car and run over to the Marvel scene to shoot a scene there maybe.”
Marvel and Netflix's Teamwork
It’s great to hear how the studios were seemingly able to work with each other and Harbour to allow both of his roles to continue.
While Red Guardian may not have been the most obvious choice to add to the Thunderbolts roster, now it feels like the perfect fit.
His character is also drastically different from who he plays on Stranger Things. Hopefully, he doesn’t get whiplash while swapping back and forth between characters daily.
Harbour previously teased how Thunderbolts is “going to drop a bomb” onto the MCU. While it’s not clear what he means, contextually speaking, it seems to hint that, at the very least, the movie will be a wild ride.
As for Stranger Things’ final season, not much is known. The writers are hard at work plotting the season out—though they were able to spare the time to share the Season 5 premiere title: “The Crawl”.
Hopefully, this collaborative mindset between studios can carry on down the line, especially since there are two big Avengers crossovers just around the corner.
Black Widow is now streaming on Disney+, while Thunderbolts hits theatres on July 26, 2024. Stranger Things’ final season does not currently have a release date, but it’s likely to be at some point in 2024.
