Did You Hear? is a weekly examination of headlines in the entertainment industry and a take on what they could mean for the future of the industry and (often), the little geeky bubble that we occupy!
Thunderbolts Tracking Behind Brave New World
No, I’m not going to be hypothesizing what the *asterisk* in Thunderbolts* is about. You can find the answer to that for yourself with a cursory Google search. I’m more interested in hypothesizing on where the latest installation in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is going to falling box office rankings.
Variety has the estimations landing around $70 – $75 million domestically and $160 – $175 million internationally based on Thunderbolts having already brought in $11.5 million in “previews” so far.
Previews, by strictest definition, should be press screenings which attendees are comped, thus no profit is to be made. Despite big blockbusters movies like we get from Disney, Marvel, Warner Bros, and DC being slated for Friday releases cinemas worldwide often have “preview” screenings on the preceding Wednesdays and Thursdays from which we can draw the above box office predictions.
What’s particularly thought provoking about the $75 million upper prediction is it is quite low for a Marvel Cinematic Universe feature. Variety points out:
Since the pandemic, only three Marvel movies, besides “Captain America: Brave New World,” have opened to less than $100 million: 2021’s “Eternals” ($71 million), “Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” ($75 million) and 2023’s “The Marvels” ($46 million).
Captain America: Brave New World did out earn this Thunderbolts projection in its opening weekend earning to the tune of $12 million in previews, $80 million domestically, and $192.4 million globally. It did ultimately come up at a loss earning a total of $414 million.
Variety goes on to ad:
Thunderbolts” cost $180 million to produce and approximately $100 million to market, so it’ll need to stick around in theaters longer than “Captain America” did to turn a profit.
AND, as stated above, Captain America: Brave New World did not turn a profit.
What you may notice about Captain America: Brave New World, Eternals, Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and The Marvels is they are some of the MCU’s more divisive projects. Fans remain split to this day on whether or not these movies are “good”. In order to keep my own editorializing out of the discussion of these movies’ merits, I think you can likely deduce for yourself where some members of the audience may take umbrage.
Thunderbolts trending so low does speak to the struggling Marvel Studios has had in maintaining audience interest in a post Avengers: Endgame world. The marketing has been sparse, at best, and seems hell-bent on drawing strong comparisons to both Guardians of the Galaxy and, on the other side of the fence, The Suicide Squad, which likely isn’t doing the box office any favours either.
It is also worth noting for those comic book nerds among us that the MCU Thunderbolts lineup in no way reflects any of the comic book Thunderbolts team save the 2023 team which is this exact lineup. Marvel Studios executives love a brand integration with Marvel Comics Editorial. This is lifted directly from the Guardians of the Galaxy brand playbook we saw 10 years ago.
Something Phase 4 and Phase 5 have been plagued by seems to be the lack of overall vision which drove Phase 1 and Phase 2 to Avengers and Phase 3 to Endgame. With what is now looking like four significant losses there is now even more pressure on Fantastic Four: First Steps to succeed when it debuts in just a couple months on July 25th. Fantastic Four has a lot of pressure on it already (as discussed in a previous installment of Did You Hear?), to prove the FF are capable of holding up a film franchise. Now Fantastic Four: First Steps likely has to clear even more money before Marvel Studios and Disney will consider it a success internally.
