Storyboard Artist Mark Sexton Talks About His Work On Marvel Studio’s Thunderbolts* And Shares Some Art

Bolts From The Blue

Some months ago, Tripwire’s contributing writer Paul Neal interviewed comic and storyboard artist Mark Sexton. At the time the artist was limited about what he could say about his work on Marvel Studios Thunderbolts* but he is freer now to talk about it…

TRIPWIRE: Mark, now that Thunderbolts* has been released, we can talk about the film a little more. To start with can I assume you have seen the finished film? What did you think of it? Did you enjoy it?             

MARK SEXTON: I have to say that I was really, really pleased with how the film turned out. When working on any film, you never really know how it’s going to come together until it’s in front of an audience. I’d say that it’s doubly so with Marvel Studios films because they really have made fluidity in story development a keystone of their filmmaking process, and that continues all the way through from pre-production to the final weeks of post-production.

It’s a way of working that can be a double-edged sword – sometimes it just doesn’t gel, as there’s just a fundamental story challenge that is too central to resolve, and the filmmakers just have to do what they can with what they have. And sometimes it all comes together beautifully – the pieces come together to make something even better. Happily, Thunderbolts* – for me, anyway – came together in that way.

It’s great because the film does have something going on under the skin. It’s trying to say something about an aspect of life that many of us struggle with, and the film’s characters and themes all play into that in an organic and unforced way. So much of that is down to Jake Schreier, the director – he really took an idea that could’ve been treated as a sidenote to the MCU and turned it into a film with a real emotional heart. It’s been a while since a Marvel film engaged me on that level, it’s really stuck with me – and that’s great! I’m very happy to have been part of that.

TW: Can you say which scenes or sequences you worked on as a storyboard artist?

MS: I was originally asked to come onto Thunderbolts* when it started very early pre-production, waaaaay back in mid-2022, but I had just taken up an offer to help conceive and write a Star Wars project and so I had to turn it down – which made me a bit sad, but there you go. Then when the Star Wars thing went onto the backburners in 2023, the producer Brian Chapek contacted me the next day and asked me if I’d help work out on the third act of the film. So – huzzah!

At that point, there had been some great work done by some terrific storyboard artists, but there were a couple of sequences that still needed cracking, all around the Thunderbolts breaking into Avengers Tower, and then the rescue sequence when the Sentry/Void manifests and creates havoc in the New York streets. I worked on a version of the Rescue sequence, when the Thunderbolts come together to save civilians from the destruction – after me, the brilliant Federico d’Alessandro did a final pass which ended up being much closer to the filmed version. But there’s little bits of previous versions that are included – I was particularly pleased by a small beat where Red Guardian saves a child only for her to be wiped from existence by the Void, a moment that I suggested in a brainstorming session with the director Jake Schreier. Never got to draw that beat, but clearly Jake remembered – he must have liked it.

I also must have done ten versions of the scene where the Thunderbolts break into Avengers Tower! We were trying to find a way to make that work – some more elaborate than others, some with unexpected appearances by other MCU characters (I won’t mention names).

TW: With big-budget movies like Thunderbolts*, do you often find you end up storyboarding a great deal of “deleted scenes” or ideas that end up on the cutting room floor?

MS: On MCU films – and most other big-budget films, I hasten to say – there’s always material that you board that never make it into the finished film. With these sorts of films, storyboards are not used strictly as an exact visualisation of the director’s vision. Most of the time, they’re more an exploratory tool, to develop sequences and ideas and to provide a loose backbone for the filmmakers to find the story that they want to tell.

That’s generally been my experience on MCU films. The script shifts and changes, and the board sequences that we produce do help with that, but they can and often do fall by the wayside as part of that exploration. With Thunderbolts*, the changes really tended to be mostly driven by the story arcs of the characters, and that’s a great reason for changes to be made. I’ve certainly worked on other MCU films where things change because the core story just isn’t working – Thor: Love and Thunder comes to mind. So much deleted material in that one!

TW: Are you able to say if you’ll be doing any more work for Marvel Studios? They have a couple of Avengers movies coming out in the next couple of years.

MS: I haven’t heard anything from Marvel since Thunderbolts*! It’s been a bit quiet. Happily, I’ve been busy on some other great films like George Miller’s Furiosa and Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, so that’s been lovely – but it’d be fun to get my teeth back into something else for Marvel Studios – if they’ll have me! It’s always great being able to play in their sandbox.

TW: Can you share with Tripwire some of the work you did on Thunderbolts and briefly explain what we’re looking at?

MS: Here’s a few boards from my version of the Void manifesting above the New York streets… Bit different from the version in the film which features helicopters. At the point I did this, there existed an earlier action sequence that heavily involved helicopters, so Jake wanted to avoid repeating himself – hence the fighter jets. But the helicopter action sequence was cut, so the final film ended up the way it did – and it works well, so no problems there!

MS: The Second selection is from the same version, where the Thunderbolts actually took Val into custody prior to everything going to hell in a handbasket… the idea was that the Void started wiping people out as they arrived, so there was some mystery as to what was going on. The way it works in the film is much stronger!