Marvel’s ‘Thunderbolts’ Tracking for Fair $70M U.S. Opening

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It’s almost certain that the 2025 summer box office will have a stronger opening than last year, with Marvel’s Thunderbolts premiering in theaters during the first week of May kicking things off. Nevertheless, the antihero comic book film still faces some challenges ahead.

Based on projections, the main event is projected to make its domestic premiere earning between $63 million and $77 million, with an aim of reaching $70 million. Although this figure seems reasonable, it’s on the lower side for a Marvel Cinematic Universe film debuting during summer.

Disney insiders believe there’s significant potential for growth, pointing out that the movie’s unconventional group of antiheroes and villains are debuting on the big screen for the first time, making them unfamiliar to audiences (preliminary ticket sales, which started this week, have been relatively sluggish as of now). The studio reports a positive response from those who’ve seen early previews of the film, as well as from theater owners, who watched Thunderbolts footage at CinemaCon last week. Multiple exhibitors and executives from competing studios told The Hollywood Reporter that the movie appears to be promisingly entertaining and appealing.

Last month, Marvel highlighted Thunderbolts significantly when they disclosed that a significant part of the cast will appear in Avengers: Armageddon.

Disney’s marketing juggernaut has only three weeks left to reveal the core of its promotional push for the upcoming movie, boasting an impressive cast including Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, David Harbour, Wyatt Russell, Olga Kurylenko, Hannah John-Kamen, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, among others.

The tagline for this feature is “Everyone deserves a second chance,” and Marvel expresses this idea in their logline: “Marvel Studios brings together an unusual team of antiheroes – Yelena Belova (Pugh), Bucky Barnes (Stan), Red Guardian (Shostakov), Ghost (John-Kamen), Taskmaster (Kurylenko) and John Walker (Russell). When they’re all caught in a deadly trap by Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Dreyfuss), these disenchanted outcasts are compelled to embark on a perilous journey that will require them to confront the deepest secrets of their past. Will this troubled team fall apart or manage to find redemption and unite as something greater before it’s too late?

As a diehard Marvel fan, I’m thrilled to see that the creators of Thunderbolts are drawing from their indie backgrounds to offer us something fresh and exciting, rather than the typical MCU fare. Jake Schreier, who’s known for his work on the A24-produced Netflix show Beef and 2012’s Robot & Frank, is at the helm of this project. It promises to be a unique Marvel experience!

The movie transformed into an exceptionally cool and A24-esque assassin film featuring Marvel superheroes, as Pugh explained in a recent joint interview with the cast and crew of Thunderbolt for Empire magazine. Schreier mentioned that he was advised to create something unique, stating, ‘There’s a definite flavor of Beef in it, which feels distinct. The emotional depth we added gives it a powerful resonance, yet there’s still room for humor.’

Last summer, Universal’s series opener, “The Fall Guy,” stormed onto the domestic box office, earning a whopping $27 million on its opening day.

In the digital era, tracking data is not always accurate and can significantly deviate. For instance, Marvel’s film “Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” released during the pandemic period in MCU, was initially predicted to earn around $45 million but ended up making over $75 million in September 2021. On the other hand, Universal’s movie “Twisters” from last summer had been projected to open with a $55 million debut, but it actually opened to $81 million in early July instead.

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2025-04-10 19:24