‘Thunderbolts’ Probably Won’t Be a Huge Hit, but Could Get Marvel Back on Track

After the tepid reception and box office performance of “Captain America: Brave New World,” Disney’s Marvel Studios has two films left to get its cinematic universe back on track and get fans excited for next year’s “Avengers: Doomsday” for reasons other than Robert Downey Jr.’s impending heel turn.

One of those films, the antihero action film “Thunderbolts*,” hits theaters this weekend and has already cleared one hurdle that befell “Brave New World” as well as “The Marvels” before it: critics mostly like it.

While not effusive in their praise, the vast majority of reviews for “Thunderbolts*” lean positive, with particular praise given to the film’s cast — led by Sebastian Stan, Florence Pugh and David Harbour — and a story that allows them to mine their characters’ emotional depth. The film currently has an 89% score on Rotten Tomatoes.

Because of the franchise’s post-“Avengers: Endgame” inconsistency, the number of Marvel fans who will show up on opening weekend for any Marvel Cinematic Universe film no matter what has diminished. But pre-release tracking for “Thunderbolts*” has it opening to $73-75 million this weekend. That’s nowhere near the $118.4 million opening of “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” in May 2023 but better than the historically low $46.1 million launch of “The Marvels.”

If the positive critical reception is followed by matching enthusiasm from audiences, clearing $80 million on opening weekend is quite possible.

Even earning such a solid start wasn’t always a guarantee. As TheWrap noted in a February analysis following the underperformance of “Brave New World,” the Marvel Studios films that have been successful after “Avengers: Endgame,” namely “Guardians Vol. 3” and “Deadpool & Wolverine,” have been largely siloed off from any efforts to advance the overarching MCU.

“Thunderbolts*” is not self-contained. It builds off of plot threads established back in 2021 by the film “Black Widow,” which introduced Pugh and Harbour as Yelena Belova and Red Guardian, and the Disney+ series “Falcon and the Winter Soldier,” which introduced Wyatt Russell as the anti-Captain America known as U.S. Agent and Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Valentina Allegra de Fontaine.

That raises the question of whether some lapsed Marvel fans who no longer watch all of the franchise’s offerings because of a perceived quality drop would have less interest in “Thunderbolts*” because of the feeling that they would have to watch the aforementioned titles to understand what’s happening in this new film.

The critics’ consensus is that this isn’t really the case. While a prior knowledge of “Black Widow” and “Falcon and the Winter Soldier” helps, the backgrounds of the Thunderbolts are conveyed well enough that the uninitiated won’t be left behind. If the word-of-mouth effectively shares that for casual audiences, it will help raise interest and the chance for better numbers in the critical second and third weekends prior to the release of “Lilo & Stitch” and “Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning” on Memorial Day weekend.

Clearing $200 million domestic and $500 million worldwide would be a respectable result for “Thunderbolts*,” which carries a reported $180 million budget. But like the other summer superhero films “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” and DC’s “Superman,” what’s more important is whether fans are satisfied.

Both Marvel and DC are at a crossroads, trying to get fans to buy-in to their long-term futures. Without spoiling, “Thunderbolts*” explains the asterisk in its title in a way that signals that they will be major players in the MCU going forward … if the earlier announcement that its cast members would appear in “Avengers: Doomsday” wasn’t already an indication.

Even if word-of-mouth doesn’t spread fast enough for “Thunderbolts*” to really shine at the box office, it will be good enough for Marvel if the majority of fan discourse is positive enough that it will encourage skeptics to give it a chance, even if it’s on Disney+ months from now. Should that happen, the film will have done its job helping to win back fan goodwill.

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