Thunderbolts* is a good movie. Full stop. It is refreshing to be able to write that about an MCU effort considering the equivocations, debates, and second-guessing that has circled many recent Marvel projects like Captain America: Brave New World, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, and The Marvels. By comparison, Jake Schreier’s Thundebolts* mostly stands on its own while also progressing the future of the MCU in genuinely exciting ways.
So what are we to make of this fairly well-received Marvel joint opening in the U.S. at an estimated $76 million, a respectable if muted-by-MCU-standards number? That figure is below all but one of the other Phase Five Marvel debuts (The Marvels, for the record), including February’s perceived disappointment Captain America: Brave New World, which debuted to $89 million in North America. Yet it is also a big step up from last summer’s disastrous start of the season when the supremely charming The Fall Guy outright flopped with a $28 million debut. Thunderbolts* also arrives with a solid CinemaScore of “A-” from polled audiences, suggesting that unlike other Phase Five movies, Thunderbolts* offered folks more of what they wanted to see.
The truth is the initial reception of Thunderbolts* is ambiguous and will surely be read as a glass half full or empty, depending on who is looking at it. But if the CinemaScore reflects genuinely positive word of mouth, it might yet prove a much needed step in the right direction ahead of the double-header that everything seems to be riding on: next year’s Avengers: Doomsday and 2027’s Avengers: Secret Wars.
Indeed, $76 million in North America, as well as $162 million globally, is frustratingly opaque for a studio that used to launch May and summer moviegoing seasons with debuts like Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’s $118 million in 2023 or Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’ $187 million in the same weekend frame from a year earlier. Thunderbolts’ number is, again, well below the grim debut of Captain America: Brave New World. However, Cap 4, it should be noted, had extensive reshoots which likely ballooned its reported budget of $180 million. While there may have been some reshoots as well on Thunderbolts*, which is also officially priced at $180 million, one look at the finished film suggests it likely cost less than Brave New World—and that’s a good thing for Marvel.
Furthermore, Cap 4 suffered disastrous word of mouth, receiving a grisly “B-” CinemaScore grade. This presaged a ghastly 68 percent drop in its second weekend. All told, Brave New World suffered an anemic multiplier of 2.25X in the U.S., which is to say it slightly more than doubled its opening weekend with a total haul of $200 million in the U.S. The international markets in turn doubled that to a final cume of $415 million.
That’s a far cry from when Captain America: Civil War earned $1.1 billion nearly a decade ago or when even the Iron Man-less Captain America: The Winter Soldier (which introduced Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson) totaled $714 million way back in 2014.
In fact, many recent Marvel movies have suffered abysmal multipliers off their opening weekend grosses. For comparison, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’s solid $106 million debut in 2023 saw the legs come out from under it in the second weekend. The film ultimately had an awful multiplier of 2.04X and only grossed $476 million globally despite its splashy start. And the similarly low-earning Eternals back in 2021 began with $71 million domestic and went on to have a 2.33X multiplier, which led to a poor $165 million total in the U.S. and $402 million globally.
However, all of those movies suffered bad word of mouth. Many folks didn’t like them. The CinemaScore for Eternals was “B,” which is bad for getting someone to recommend a movie to friends and family, and Ant-Man 3 suffered the exact same grade.
The cumulative effect might now be undercutting an MCU movie that seems to generally have pleased the fans who showed up. Anecdotally, the folks I know who are still devoted to the Marvel Cinematic Universe really dug Thunderbolts’ shaggy charms and Florence Pugh’s undeniable star charisma. That is also reflected in its CinemaScore suggesting word of mouth will be better. That could therefore prove useful for better legs going forward. After all, the last MCU movie to receive better than a “B+” CinemaScore was last year’s Deadpool & Wolverine, and whatever the critics might say about its shameless manipulation of nostalgia (including this one right here), the true believers adored it. The film received an “A” CinemaScore and wound up literally tripling its spectacular domestic opening of $211 million with a 3.02X multiplier. It earned $637 million domestically and $1.3 billion globally.
If Thunderbolts* could experience a similarly leggy run, it could cross $225 million domestically. Granted that is still down from what one week of the Merc with a Mouth did, but it could belie a rebuilding of trust with fans and audiences after so many MCU movies have left ticket-buyers feeling burned. Although globally, the days of relying on China to save a Disney release appear to be over and that might leave superhero movies with price tags in the neighborhood of a quarter-billion dollars in a precarious spot.
Honestly, it will be difficult to read much of anything in Thunderbolts’ reception as a possible bridge-builder until we at least see its second weekend drop and beyond. Even if it does build that bridge, it would seem the audiences who only three years ago were showing up for just about any MCU movie remain deeply skeptical while younger Gen-Z and Gen Alpha moviegoers would rather see Jack Black say “I am Steve” than a post-credit scene setting up Avengers 5 or 6 (depending how you count Civil War).
For movie theater owners, Thunderbolts* will prove a passable start to summer after Minecraft and Sinners overperformed this spring. But for Marvel, all eyes are still really riding on their ability to reboot what is perceived as an A-list property in Fantastic Four, as well as the Avengers of it all next summer.
The post Thunderbolts* Box Office Leaves Marvel in Ambiguous Position appeared first on Den of Geek.
From https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/thunderbolts-box-office-marvel-ambiguous-position/
