The MCU has gotten off to a rough start in 2025 after a year of relative rest in which Marvel Studios only released one film in theaters: Deadpool & Wolverine ($211.4M domestic opening, $636.7M domestic total), which is currently the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time, both domestically and internationally. Captain America: Brave New World opened to a modest $88.8M over the three-day President's Day weekend (4-day domestic opening: $100M). 

 The movie didn't gain much traction in the following weeks, earning $188 million domestically in the first five weeks of release. No other film made more than $50 million during that time, so there wasn't much competition for viewers during Chase Week. Involving Mission: Impossible – The Final Chapter, Lilo & Stitch, and Karate Kid, all coming later in May, Thunderbolts*, an anti-hero team-up movie involving well-known characters from Marvel Studios' film and television assets, may have greater competition during its first month than Brave New World did.  

Should positive word-of-mouth develop, premium format real estate and ticket sales to casual MCU fans who might want to catch up on the film in later weeks will be more difficult for Thunderbolts* to come by after its debut weekend.  More information on the movie's possible performance in that area will become available after the review and reaction embargoes are lifted.

The opening weekend of Thunderbolts* is not currently expected to gross above $100 million, according to our panel of forecasters, given the lackluster success of Captain America: Brave New World and the fact that Marvel's ensemble films have not performed well since the 2019 release of Avengers: Endgame.  On the plus side:  Unlike Eternals ($71.2M domestic opening, $164.9M domestic total), which came out in november 2021, Thunderbolts* has a cast of characters that most fans of Marvel Studios are already familiar with. 

The fact that many of those characters were antagonists or supporting cast members who had previously appeared in films dating back several years (Taskmasker and Alexei from 2021's Black Widow; Ghost from 2018's Ant-Man and the Wasp) or on Disney+-exclusive series from Marvel Studios (Yelena in Hawkeye; john Walker in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) may have deterred interest among the non-MCU superfan population. 

The July release of Fantastic Four: First Steps, which marks something of a fresh start for the MCU as the debut (apart from a cameo for an alternate-universe Reed Richards in the doctor Strange sequel) of Disney/Marvel's version of "Marvel's First Family," will give them another chance at things if Thunderbolts* doesn't live up to the hype before Avengers: Doomsday.  
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THUNDERBOLTS*

SIBY JEYYA

06/04/2025 10:23 AM