Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, David Harbour, Wyatt Russell and Hannah John-Kamen star in Disney and Marvel’s “Thunderbolts*”
Disney
A group of unconventional antiheroes has jumpstarted the summer box office.
Disney and Marvel’s “Thunderbolts*” tallied an estimated $76 million during its domestic opening weekend, the third highest debut of 2025.
Including international ticket sales, the latest Marvel Cinematic Universe flick snared an estimated $162.1 million globally.
“With the debut of ‘Thunderbolts*,’ May is shaping up to be one the best on record,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore.
Last year, the summer box office — which kicks off the first weekend in May and runs through Labor Day — struggled at the start, with Universal’s “The Fall Guy” only snapping up $28 million in its first three days. It was the first year since 2009 that a Marvel film wasn’t on the slate to start the season.
Marvel films have struggled in recent years to live up to the record-setting achievements of “Avengers: Endgame” in 2019. For every box office hit there was a major miss, and audiences bemoaned the studio’s quality inconsistencies. Even in the last year, “The Marvels” and “Captain America: Brave New World” underwhelmed, while “Deadpool & Wolverine” overperformed.
“Every franchise movie faces its share of tailwinds and headwinds, inherent and external factors that dictate what audience anticipation and response will be,” said Shawn Robbins, director of analytics at Fandango and founder of Box Office Theory. “But there’s no doubt ‘Thunderbolts*’ is a moment worth a victory lap for Marvel after several years of wildly varying sentiment toward multiple films and streaming series.”
While $76 million is middle of the pack for the MCU, it’s a strong performance for “Thunderbolts*,” box office analysts told CNBC.
“To launch an ensemble of junior varsity characters unfamiliar to many outside the core fan base, and to do so with some of the best word of mouth the MCU has seen from critics and audiences in years, is a fresh reminder of what Marvel is capable of when the creative engine fires on all cylinders,” Robbins said.
“Thunderbolts*” currently holds an 88% “Fresh” rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, from 257 reviews and a 94% rating from audiences.
“The opening weekend performance of ‘Thunderbolts*’ is just the beginning for this well-reviewed crowd-pleaser,” said Comscore’s Dergarabedian. “[It] looks to follow in the tradition of ‘A Minecraft Movie’ and ‘Sinners,’ with long-term playability.”
In recent weeks, Warner Bros.‘ “A Minecraft Movie” and “Sinners” have consistently lured in moviegoers, with smaller-than-average weekly attendance drops. The hope is that “Thunderbolts*” will continue that trend.
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC. NBCUniversal owns Rotten Tomatoes and Fandango.