Disney and Marvel Studios’ Thunderbolts* managed to lead the domestic box office again, generating $33.1M in its second weekend. The film’s ten-day domestic total now stands at $128.5M, with a global gross of $272.2M. Rounding out the top 5, in second place was Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, which just crossed the $200M domestic mark, followed by A Mincraft Movie, The Accountant 2, and the debut of Clown in a Cornfield. Despite topping the charts, the comparatively mediocre performance of the latest MCU flick highlights a few lingering questions about Marvel’s current trajectory and the effectiveness of Bob Iger’s new strategy for Marvel Studios.
Thunderbolts* experienced a 55% drop from its opening weekend, which is only slightly better than the average 57% decline for Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) titles. This retention is on par with Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (54% drop) and significantly better than the 68% drop for Captain America: Brave New World earlier this year.
However, when compared to Eternals, another recent MCU film featuring lesser-known characters, Thunderbolts is underperforming in key areas. While its opening weekend gross of $74 million slightly exceeded Eternals‘ $71 million, the per-theater average tells a different story. Thunderbolts earned $17,159 per theater in its debut, whereas Eternals managed $17,432 per theater in 2021, despite lower ticket prices at the time. Adjusted for inflation and attendance, Eternals drew a larger audience, suggesting that Thunderbolts is not matching its predecessor’s reach. Another look at the numbers, when accounting for inflation, shows that the movie’s opening weekend performance was only the 27th best out of 35 MCU movies.
The film is currently tracking $10.3 million ahead of Eternals at the same ten-day mark, but remains $12.7 million behind Captain America: Brave New World after ten days. Whether Thunderbolts* can ultimately surpass the $200.7 million domestic total of Brave New World will depend on its staying power as competition increases.
Related: Marvel’s Thunder Fizzles: Industry Spins “Thunderbolts” Soft Start as a Success
Just last week, CEO Bob Iger positioned Thunderbolts as the studio’s “first and best example” of Marvel’s renewed focus on quality over quantity, following a period of overproduction and mixed results for the MCU. During a recent earnings call, Iger emphasized that the studio is scaling back output to “prioritize” stronger films. However, when you soberly look at the data from Marvel’s 2025 releases, it indicates that this “new approach” has yet to truly deliver a significant turnaround.
Critics and fans remain divided on the film’s creative direction. While Thunderbolts* has received plenty of positive reviews, the overall sentiment is that it wasn’t anything very original, it just wasn’t bad, and the sense is that the MCU’s appeal has tremendously diminished since its peak with Avengers: Endgame. And dubbing this movie the “New Avengers,” not withstanding, the current strategy of spotlighting lesser-known characters and ensemble casts has not generated the same enthusiasm or box office momentum.
With the summer movie season underway and no major new releases this weekend or next, except for Final Destination: Bloodlines, Thunderbolts* is expected to stay atop the charts. It is also expected to remain in theaters for an extended run (Disney’s go-to strategy) in the hopes it will put up numbers the studio can brag about. Although that strategy utterly failed this past weekend for Snow White.
Upcoming MCU projects, including Avengers: Doomsday and Fantastic Four: First Steps, will test whether Marvel’s alleged shift in strategy can reignite audience interest. For now, the muted performance of Thunderbolts* suggests that the franchise’s path forward remains uncertain, and the studio’s efforts to recapture its former box office dominance are still a work in progress.
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