10 Reasons Thunderbolts* Disappointed at the Box Office

10 Reasons Thunderbolts* Disappointed at the Box Office

Today Thunderbolts* drops on Disney+. This was the summer kick off film for 2025 and is widely regarded as one of the MCU’s best films post-Endgame. But despite a prime release date and great reviews the film only made $382 million against a $180 million budget. What happened to Thunderbolts*? Why did it underperform? Let’s talk about it!

NOTE: I did a similar blog post last week when Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning dropped on digital. In that article I reacted to ScreenRant’s 10 reasons as to why that movie underperformed. I’m going to be doing the same thing here except obviously talking about Thunderbolts*. The article name is “10 Biggest Reasons Thunderbolts*’s Box Office Is So Disappointing” by Felipe Rangel. 

#10: Thunderbolts* Is A New, Untested Property in The MCU: This is a great reason because I think this absolutely affected the film’s box office. The brand and team of “Thunderbolts” isn’t known to the general public. That isn’t one of the super iconic legendary superhero teams. It’s a B-team filled with B and C level comic book characters. People hear the name Thunderbolts* and go “who?”. They don’t know who they are because they’re not popular. The article talks about how James Gunn was able to make a hit film with Guardians of the Galaxy that are even more obscure and unknown characters. But I think the difference between Guardians of the Galaxy and Thunderbolts* is that Guardians of the Galaxy came out when the MCU had the trust and good will with the audience. This was announced months after The Avengers came out and that was a mega hit making $1.5 billion. The film was released after Captain America: The Winter Soldier, one of the MCU’s most beloved films. When Thunderbolts* came out it’s a time when the MCU isn’t on top and the overall quality is done. People aren’t flocking to the MCU the way they were in Phase 3. There’s been a lot more duds and disappointments in the MCU, so people aren’t as excited for them anymore. If you audience members that are burnt out on the MCU plus they see a trailer for a team they don’t know, they aren’t going to go see the movie. 

#9: Marvel Movies’ Box Office Have Been on the Decline in Recent Years: This is another reason that I think does fit, but a lot of recent MCU films have all underperformed. There’s two different stats that have come out over the last couple of weeks with Fantastic Four releasing. The first one is this is the first year since 2008 that DC had the highest grossing comic book movie. That just goes to show how successful and popular the MCU was for so many years. The second one that’s come out more recently, but this is the first year since 2011 that no comic book movie has surpassed $700 million at the box office. There’s a greater conversation to be had about the comic book movie genre as a whole. But I think it is good evidence to back up this reason that recent MCU films haven’t been performing the way they used to. In the post-Endgame MCU era, they had several movies that have underperformed. The Marvels didn’t make $200 million worldwide becoming the MCU’s biggest flop. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania made $476 million, the lowest performing Ant-Man film that caused the MCU to rethink their plans with Kang. Even the MCU film that released before this, Captain America: Brave New World made around $400 million, it didn’t bomb but considering you have Captain America in the name it should’ve done a lot better. Thunderbolts* is another recent example of an MCU film underperforming. I believe it’s one of the bottom three worst performing MCU films along there with The Incredible Hulk and The Marvels which is disappointing because Thunderbolts* is a really good movie and doesn’t deserve to be in that bottom tier of box office. 

#8: Captain America: Brave New World Left Audiences Disappointed Months Before: This is one that I’ve heard a lot of people talk about as a possible reason and I’m conflicted on it. Because I think if we start saying “this MCU movie bombed because the last one wasn’t good”. There’s plenty of examples that are contradictory to one another. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 came out, got great reviews and made over $800 million. The next MCU film after that was The Marvels that bombed. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania came out after Black Panther: Wakanda Forever that made a lot of money and got multiple Oscar nominations, Quantumania didn’t do great box office numbers. At the same time, I do think there is some truth that had Brave New World been better received then Thunderbolts*’s box office would’ve been better. Because MCU fans were ridding off the high of Brave New World, not the disappointment of the film. If we use this metric then that means Fantastic Four: First Steps would be doing a lot better at the box office because Thunderbolts* got great reviews. First Steps isn’t flopping, it’s going to pass $500 million. But I think that’s a bit of a disappointment considering what Marvel was probably hoping and thinking it’ll do. 

#7: “The New Avengers” Name Switch Came Too Late to Help the Box Office: This is another one that a lot of people have been debating ever since the film came out and Marvel decided to rebrand the film. For years now there’s been speculation and rumors about what the asterisks mark the title means. When you watch the film, it tells you what the asterisk means and we finally know who our Avengers are. The Monday after the film released they renamed the film and put The New Avengers on all of the posters instead of Thunderbolts*. There’s even a video of Sebastian Stan changing one of the posters in Hollywood to say The New Avengers. The question related to this becomes did this happen too late? Had the film been titled The New Avengers from the very beginning it would’ve made a lot more money. Probably wouldn’t have done $1 billion, but it would’ve done around $800 million. But with them titling the film Thunderbolts*, a brand that not as many people are familiar with, people weren’t interested in it as much. Part of the problem of switching it when they did was it spoiled the ending of the film after just three days of being in theaters. The people that maybe couldn’t catch it opening weekend but were curious to check it out, but didn’t feel like they needed to because the answer of what the asterisk meant was revealed. I don’t think this is one of the biggest reasons as to why the box office wasn’t great, but I do think it is somewhat of a factor. 

#6: The MCU’s Recent Team Debuts Movies All Underperformed: This is a weird reason that I don’t fully get. In the article, they talk about how films like Eternals and The Marvels that are teamup films underperformed because they were largely introducing brand new characters. I don’t think you can at all say Eternals underperformed because it was a new character. It underperformed because the reviews weren’t great and the film came out when COVID was still a big deal and then there’s a number of reasons why The Marvels is the MCU’s biggest bomb. It’s a common thread between the films that they underperformed, but I don’t think you can say it was because they were team up films. The only MCU Movie to come out last year was Deadpool & Wolverine which is a teamup film and it made over $1 billion becoming the highest grossing R-rated film of all time. Maybe it’s unfair to compare the two because Deadpool & Wolverine is an MCU movie but it was elevated because of Wolverine and the multiverse being included. But it’s still a team up film so I think their reasoning is a bit weird because there’s a counter example that came out last year.  

 

#5: Thunderbolts* Needed The Audience to do MCU Homework: This is an issue that I think a lot of recent MCU films have had. They connected the tv shows so much to the movies that in order to understand the movies you have to watch multiple tv shows. Going back to The Marvels, that’s one of the reasons why it bombed and I think that’s a very solid for why Thunderbolts* underperformed. In order to understand this film and these characters you need to have seen Ant-Man and the Wasp, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and Black Widow. This film is pulling side characters from those films into this film. Ant-Man and the Wasp did release in the prime of the MCU, but I believe it’s the lowest grossing film phase 3 by a good bit. Ghost wasn’t a fan favorite character that a lot of people were talking about after it was released. You jump forward seven years and we finally follow up on Ghost, we’ve all forgotten about Ghost by the time Thunderbolts* rolled around because we hadn’t seen her in seven years. In the case of Yelena, Red Guardian, and John Walker we haven’t seen them in four years. Their projects aren’t some of the most celebrated MCU projects, a lot of people left very disappointed and view them as bottom tier MCU. So yah, I do think Thunderbolts* required too much homework from the audience. People don’t wanna have to watch multiple movies and tv shows just so they can understand a film. What’s interesting about Thunderbolts* is that I don’t think you need to have seen those projects to understand it. The film itself explains who these characters are and recaps who they are prior to the events of this film. But audiences won’t know that about the film unless they watch it. 

#4: Thunderbolts* Hide Its Biggest Hero From The Trailers: I think this is just a stupid reason to give on here. To suggest that Thunderbolts* would’ve sold more tickets had they revealed who Bob really was is stupid. In Thunderbolts* they treat the reveal of Bob as Sentry as a surprise. The movie designs that moment to surprise the audience that he has powers. By revealing it in the marketing would’ve caused that moment to mean nothing. In the article they talk about how Superman’s trailers were breaking records so had they revealed that there’s a Superman type character in the film tickets sales would’ve gone up, that’s stupid and makes zero sense. I don’t think anybody that was doubtful about this film suddenly would’ve changed their mind and then seen Sentry in the trailers. Beyond that, Sentry is not an A-list comic book character. My introduction to Sentry was through this film and probably was for a large majority of audiences. Sentry is like a C-list Marvel character that sure has Superman’s powers but is not nearly as popular. 

#3: Superhero Fatigue Has Hurt Both Marvel and DC: This has sort of been a reason for so many comic book movies underperforming that I think you have to tie into this one. But I with Thunderbolts* I think it's more so that there’s MCU fatigue. Thunderbolts* got great reviews but still underperformed at the box office. I think people are tired and burnt out on the MCU and superhero movies being mediocre. I think that its people are burned out on mediocre superhero movies, not all superhero movies. In the 2010s when the comic book movie genre was killing even comic book movies with bad reviews made money. Suicide Squad (2016), not a good movie that got trashed by critics made $750 million. But with there being so many mediocre and bland comic book movies the excitement for a majority of them is down. When you mix people being burnt out on comic book movies with people not caring about who the Thunderbolts* are some of the biggest factors for why Thunderbolts* box office is so disappointing. 

#2: Marvel Taught Its Fans A Negative Lesson About Streaming:This is an interesting one because I think this reason more so connects to Disney and Pixar films, not Marvel movies. But in general, I think studios are teaching audiences to just wait for streaming. Ticket prices are getting more expensive averaging about $13, so some people don’t want to pay that money and just wait to watch it for free at home. The article says that Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and The Marvels all dropped on Disney+ 89 days after they opened. That’s not just under three months which is very disappointing and a bad choice on their part. Deadpool & Wolverine, Captain America: Brave New World, and Thunderbolts* dropped between 103 and 118 days, so Marvel is learning and doing better about that. I’m guessing The Fantastic Four: First Steps will probably do something similar, drop in early November is my guess. I think this reason is a big reason as to why so many movies are underperforming at the box office. Last year, The Fall Guy dropped on streaming 17 days after release. That was the summer kick off film and dropped on streaming the same month it was released. I don’t know if that’s the number 2 reason Thunderbolts* underperformed, but it’s something to consider. 

  

#1: Thunderbolts*’s Biggest MCU Movie Connections Were to Films That Underperformed/Are Not Remembered: This is going to back to reason #5 of having to do homework to understand the film. So many of the films and tv shows that Thunderbolts* is pulling from projects that don’t have the best reputation with MCU fans. There are fans of those projects, I like all of those projects but none of them are top tier MCU. I think they just waited too long to put out Thunderbolts*. YouTuber Sean Chandler has said that Thunderbolts* should’ve been released in 2022 to close out phase 4. Had it been released in 2022 a year after these characters were introduced it probably would’ve done a lot better at the box office because the characters and the projects were fresher on people’s minds. You do the same movie that we got in 2025 but drop it in November 2022 and set up The New Avengers for Phase 5 and the threat of the phase. But instead, they waited four years after these characters were introduced to follow up on them. I get that the film was delayed because of the strikes, but prior to the strikes this film was scheduled to release in July 2024 which was still too late for this film to be released. This film should’ve taken Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’s November 2022 release date. But instead they waited till May 2025.