In the same manner that your local big box store somehow begins stocking back to school merchandise on July 5th, Halloween costumes on Labor Day and Christmas decorations around Rosh Hashonah, Hollywood studios have effectively declared May Day as their kickoff to summer. Mind you, there’s no official holiday anywhere in sight, college students are preparing for finals and, at least in my area, there’s no sun or 90 degree temperatures anywhere in sight. It’s a damn sight better that the spectre of a blizzard, but I’m not running out to avoid any last minute rush on SPF 50.
But there was still enough reason for Disney to claim this slot to launch their latest Marvel movie, THUNDERBOLTS*. In true Marvel Cinema Universe fashion, it’s an action-packed journey about a group of misfit antiheroes who come together to help save humanity. That’s clearly the log line that can also be applied to THE AVENGERS and THE FANTASTIC FOUR, both legacy titles that at least I’ve heard of and have some familarity with. THUNDERBOLTS* is a more obscure grouping with roots in the comics, apparently as far back as THE INCREDIBLE HULK #449. which hit newsstands and candy stores back in November 1996 (they were a lot more of them then). More recently, it popped up on former MCU wizard James Gunn’s to-do list while filming the original GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY in 2014, but lingered in various stages of prioritization before Gunn’s interest waned in 2021 after, per COMIC BOOK.com’s Brendan Davis via Wikipedia, Gunn was no longer interested in the idea after directing the DC Extended Universe (DCEU) film The Suicide Squad (2021), because that team from DC Comics is based on a similar concept to the Thunderbolts.[29].
Still, any studio driven by the ubiquitous obsession with pre-existing IP would be determined to still forge ahead, and in this case THUNDERBOLTS* found a new champion in director Jake Schreier, who cobbled together a team that included a bevy of “sixth men” characters from a variety of releases from the past decade, including the intriguingly cast Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ s Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, Daniel Bruhl’s Helmut Zero and Wyatt Russell’s John Walker from the CAPTAIN AMERICA division. Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova, teed up as a possibility in the post-credits scene from BLACk WIDOW, becomes this group’s fulcrum. There’s some familiarity with these actors and roles given the formulaic way Marvel floods the interview circuit with full cast deployments and group takeovers of shows like JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE!, but to more casual observers this offering seemed to come off more like the Rising Stars segments of professional sports All-Star games.
Which could explain why there’s a true mixed bag of numbers and reactions to this past weekend’s box office. As he so often brilliantly recaps, THE ANKLER’s Sean McNulty shared his key bullets in his WAKEUP newsletter which dropped last night:
- While sure, it’s not the $187M of Doctor Strange in 2022 (which had plot-finishing elements to previous pics) or the $118M of Guardians 3 in 2023 (obviously a pre-existing audience there) . . . it’s a solid start for a pic with no signifiant existing MARVEL IP or material continuing storyline.
- $180M budget, so a good start . . . but a ways to go — keep in mind this movie has no major new competition next weekend, and still has all of the IMAX screens.
- Opening night audiences:
- A- CinemaScore
- 62% were under 35.
- 42% White, 26% Latino, 17% Black and 10% Asian
- 65% male / 35% female
- AND: In recent MARVEL terms — it’s not quite Captain America 4 ($88M), but it certainly is far better received (that one had a B- CinemaScore) — so the 2nd weekend should yield higher returns.
The one good thing about getting a release date well ahead of the Memorial Day push is you do get a second crack against a still-diminished playing field. Mother’s Day weekend is typically avoided for tentpole projects, but not everyone has a mother that’s breathing or necessarily one you’d want to spend more than just brunch with. And with Selina Meyer/Elaine Benes on the screen, an awful lot of moms might be more inclined to tag along.
I know enough about the way the MCU operates to know that there’s usually more than the mere release of a movie, and I couldn’t help but join the apparent undertow of chatter asking the burning question–why the hell is there an asterisk in the title?
With SPOILER ALERT flashing in bold font, BUSINESS INSIDER’s
“Thunderbolts*” has an asterisk in the title because it was never the official name for the group of misfits.
When production for “Thunderbolts*” was announced in March 2024, Marvel added an asterisk to its title. It wasn’t a typo, and in the lead up to the release, Marvel used the mystery around the asterisk to lure in audiences. When asked about the asterisk at ComicCon last year, Kevin Feige, the president of Marvel Studios, said: “We won’t talk more about that until after the movie comes out.”
Many fans theorized it showed Thunderbolts was a temporary name for the group — and they were right. Thunderbolts were renamed The New Avengers.
So it appears that both creatively and on the Disney ledgers this is very much a work in progress. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS’ write-up from yesterday added more specific context:
Though bigger MCU films — including 2024’s “Deadpool vs. Wolverine” (with a $211 million opening on the way to $1.34 billion worldwide) — have monopolized movie screens immediately, “Thunderbolts” could gather steam more steadily. Or, it could go down as another example of Marvel struggling to rekindle its golden touch.
Marvel spent about $180 million to produced the movie, which added $86.1 million in overseas sales. The film also teases the next MCU chapter, “The Fantastic Four: First Steps,” due out July 25. “Marvel set the bar so high for so many years that a $76 million opening may seem to some like it should have done $100 million or something like that,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for Comscore. “This is a great reset. They’re hitting the reset with ‘Thunderbolts.” The great reviews and the word-of-mouth should hold it (in) good stead.”
And, of course, in exactly 52 weeks May Day weekend will see the massively anticipated release of AVENGERS: DOOMSDAY. courtesy of the anything-but-cost-efficient Russo brothers. 53 weeks after that, we get them again with the already locked-in followup AVENGERS: SECRET WARS.
So regardless of how THUNDERBOLTS* pans out in its own right it’s ultimately just the pawn move in the chess game that sees the king and queen lurking in the back rows ready to be deployed. And any verdict on how this all settles out for Disney will need to be tabled until at least 2027. Which, if you take him at his word, will be after Bob Iger finally departs the scene–or perhaps when new studio ownership is learning where the executive washrooms are hiddne.
Hence, while this may indeed not be a de facto thunderbolt, it’s quite likely the relative calm before the real storm. That asterisk is definitely a temporary tattoo. Whether the positive box office trend is equally temporary has yet to be determined.
Until next time…