Marvel in Trouble Again: Thunderbolts Hits Historic Flop List
Thunderbolts was supposed to close out Phase Five with a bang. Instead, it's closing out Marvel's reputation for box office dominance.
Released on May 2, the film has only pulled in $379.2 million worldwide, making it the fourth-worst performing MCU movie of all time. It'll scrape past Black Widow to land at #5, but that's not something Marvel should be bragging about.
It's also the second box office bomb in a row, after Captain America: Brave New World flopped with $415.1 million. Add The Marvels to the pile, and half of Phase Five's output is now on Marvel's bottom six list. For a studio that used to print billion-dollar openings like clockwork, this is officially a meltdown.
And before anyone says "but the movie's good"—sure. Thunderbolts got 88% from critics and 93% from fans on Rotten Tomatoes. Great. That just makes the financial failure more embarrassing.
The film actually tried something different. No squeaky-clean heroes—just a pile of damaged ex-villains trying to earn redemption:
- Florence Pugh's Yelena
- David Harbour's Red Guardian
- Wyatt Russell's U.S. Agent
- Hannah John-Kamen's Ghost
- Olga Kurylenko's Taskmaster
- And Sebastian Stan in peak political cosplay as Congressman Bucky Barnes.
Their target: Sentry (Lewis Pullman), a golden god who melts down and drags them through black voids of their worst traumas. So yeah—less punchy quips, more emotional torment.
And just when Marvel had something interesting on their hands, they spoiled the twist in their own marketing, announcing the Thunderbolts are now officially The New Avengers. Good luck getting people to care when you give away the payoff on Instagram.
The group will show up again in Avengers: Doomsday, which is now filming in the UK. That's the one where Robert Downey Jr. returns as Doctor Doom, because apparently bringing Iron Man back as a villain is what counts as innovation now.
So yes—Thunderbolts might be Marvel's best-reviewed film in years. But at the box office, it's a trainwreck. And when your "wins" still land in the historic flop column, it's not just a bad phase.
It's a franchise in freefall.