marvelstudios
Thunderbolts* might've been Marvel's sacrificial lamb.
This movie was probably the best MCU movie after endgame outside of Guardians 3 (You can argue it is better than GOTG 3). However, as great as it is, it flopped money-wise and lost like a hundred million. I think that Marvel intended Thunderbolts to be their low-risk high-reward movie where they'll risk to lose money and just cast B-tier characters of the MCU so even if the viewers didn't liked it, at least they didn't sabotaged their well-known ones (which they did a lot of times). Although, if they succeeded to write a compelling story, then they successfully transformed these forgettable characters into the spotlight. I think Marvel didn't expected this to be a blockbuster but a movie that people will talk about and watch when it comes to streaming sites making us hyped for their next "big" movies like f4, doomsday, brand new day.
Discussion
I think you are not accounting for some important factors here.
Let me tell you about Pokemon games. Sales of each next gen are determined not just by how good the actual game is, but also by trust the audience put in these games to be good based on previous gen. Last gen was great? Cool, you'll have more people buy your next game even if it's somewhat lacking. I think it's the same case here. Sales are low not because the movie is bad. It's amazing! Sales are low because trust is low. Now that MCU shows a decent movie it will build trust and affect sales of the next movie. I just have to have my fingers crossed it will be as good as this one :)
This is it right here. I imagine Marvel considers Thunderbolts a win, not because it made so much money (it didn't), but because it helps restore some faith in the marvel brand.
If Fantastic Four winds up getting positive reviews, & hopefully it will, then the next movies we're getting are Spider-Man & the 2 Avengers films, which will presumably make a ton of money.
As long as the TV side of things doesn't crash & burn, the next couple of years should look a lot better for Marvel Studios.
Exactly, Thunderbolts comes at a pretty low point for the MCU, where people just aren’t interested in what’s going on. But, it may be what Marvel needed. A solid movie, with fresh characters (for the average audience member), that builds trust in MCU projects again. Now, if F4 is successful, Marvel will be going into next year with a ton of momentum and anticipation as their big blockbusters will hit theaters.
The past three out of four MCU movies (BNW, Marvels, GOTG, Quantumania), have been flops. And the D+ shows haven’t helped. There probably weren’t any movies that could be a raging success following that lineup, and if Thunderbolts hits streaming soon, interest will peak going into F4.
Was GotG a flop? I considered it one of the strongest movies since Endgame.
They said 3 out of 4. I'm assuming they mean GOTG is the one of the 4 that isn't a flop.
It's funny, because BNW tried so hard to be WS again (Cap, a widow and a Falcon fight a secret hidden faction in the government. Starting with a Cap 1 on 1 fight, ending with a giant spectacular showdown in DC) but Thunderbolts* is pretty much the new WS.
Basically a BW sequel (but also a sequel to F&TWS) that takes It's characters and story seriously, isn't afraid to shake up the status quo, and has something to say.
I know it financially flopped, but I hope it's the start of Marvel going back to cohesive, collaborative story telling that doesn't just feel like one off after one off.
Honestly I think Spider-Man will prob make a ton of money even if F4 flops (really hope it does well tho). It's a continuation of a popular existing character/series, not a new team made up of previously B-tier characters entirely like Thunderbolts* or someone new taking over an established mantle like with CA4. All of the previous MCU Spidey movies have been well-received, plus knowing that it's crossing over with Punisher, I think that one will do really well regardless of F4.
I think F4 will probably have more bearing on how Doomsday does since we haven't seen this iteration of the F4 before but it's already been long-confirmed that they'll be a key part of Doomsday.
Sales are also low bc the MCU is a mature product
It’s downhill from here (even if it’s a slow downhill) in regards to box office
“The Solo Effect” - I think the Solo Star Wars film was actually pretty good. Not amazing (like Rogue One) but very serviceable and entertaining (acting was also solid).
Unfortunately Solo was released right after the abomination that was The Last Jedi. The trust in Star Wars was low and people shied away from the next film in Star Wars universe.
The Last Jedi was the best of the sequels, and I will die on this hill.
I’d agree with you if not for the Character assassination of the Original Trilogy characters. Force awakens was safe and in the grand scheme of things, unimportant. But in my opinion, it was the best of the three.
I’m tryna agree with you, but Pokemon was about the worst example series you could’ve pulled from XD. Everybody complains about Pokemon on pretty much every aspect (except the music). They lost trust since Dexit and haven’t shown any reason to earn it back since. Yet, people buy every generation.
Scarlet and Violet are the best selling Pokemon games of all time in Japan, beating Pokemon Red/Green sales for the first time ever.
Internationally Gen 8 and 9 are 2nd and 3rd best selling games after Red/Blue.
I don’t think that’s a good sign of quality in terms of Pokemon.
This is not a very good example at all. Pokemon games have had an absurd drop in quality with each passing generation for quite a few years in a row now. Pokemon is firmly in the status of "too big to fail", they know their audience will buy literally any barely functioning pile of shit they push out and so they dont even try anymore. Its not really comparable at all.
Disagree. I think Disney braced for it because they knew it would be not successful in spite of how great it is.
They have people analyzing the market and the public all the time. It’s both a blessing and a crutch. Because when fans are happy, they know and don’t change a thing. When they aren’t, they haven’t a clue as to why and try everything they can to get back to where they were.
Because of that, I do honestly think Marvel and Disney know the brand was damaged. I mean, how could you not? When you do a news article saying “we thought AM3 was great, we don’t know why it flopped” it shows that they suddenly realized they were not bulletproof and the audience won’t just lay down for anything you make.
But the other side of that is that now you have to rebuild trust, and regain that sense of “event film” that they used to have. 2024, was the first step towards that goal. Everything from 2024 onwards has been good to fantastic, and thunderbolts is up there with the best of the MCU of old. But it’s not enough yet. It’s a big step forward, but the audience isn’t ready to hand over their money in droves again. It’s going to take a consistent string of Thunderboltesque movies to really hammer the point home that they course corrected.
I think it really will come down to what phase 7 looks like when it comes to Marvel. You know it's all fine and well to say you're doing the X-Men. That's one film every 3 years if we're lucky.
I know people like to say that marvel can take any character and make them work. And I just don't think that's the case anymore. I don't think you can go into phase 7 being cute and announce Strange Academy or The Annihilators.
I think name value is going to matter more than ever. Because regardless of quality. I don't think the general audience is going to be swayed to go see a Reptil movie.
I think they need to focus on the Wolverines, Spiderman, Black Panthers of their catalog until they can get the GA back
Execs are also (probably) smart enough to factor in that the box office is in a pretty major slump right now and hasn't even come close to getting back up to pre-pandemic numbers. I imagine they will be looking at streaming numbers as a more reliable metric.
Man they were really deluded weren’t they 🤣 no way they actually thought ant man 3 would be great
This post is contradictory to the entire mcu iron man was a b-list hero before his movies lol and I enjoyed thunderbolts but arguing it’s better than guardians is a hot take although I respect that opinion
Arguing it's better than GotG3 is a lukewarm take at best. It's a fairly common take, from what I've seen.
Maybe in this ecochamber but not in the real world
I get where you’re coming from, but even our real world social circles can be echo chambers
I mean that's why I don't make general statements over what my friends and most frequented channels of information repeat, but what different individuals say.
Like comments after theater showings for example, when the experience is most fresh
The type of galaxy brain posts this sub makes instead of just accepting the facts that A) the movie didn’t resonate with a massive audience & B) Marvel needs to get their budgets under control. It’s really not that complicated.
Makes me think they talk about nothing but the MCU 24 hours a day lol
I enjoyed the Thunderbolts more than Guardians. It's not a hot take at all.
same.. i genuinely dont see the issue with that opinion.
That dude is shitting all over the movie in replies. Idk why he pretended to be so diplomatic about it if it isn’t how he actually feels
And Guardians of the Galaxy, nobody ever hear of them before the movies.
Iron Man being B list is just not true if we are comparing to characters like these. He was one of main characters of Avengers from the start and there was reason why MCU started with him. He was just B in comparison to Spider-Man, X-Men and Fantastic 4
“He was just B in comparison to Spider-Man, X-Men and Fantastic 4”
what else would we compare them to? lol also avengers where very much a b-tier
At the time I think it would be fair to call him B list. Pre-MCU the average person could probably only name 10 superheroes max and Iron Man wouldn't be one of them.
That being said, the characters in Thunderbolts are C and D list. Except Bucky and maybe Yelena
Iron Man had his own cartoon that ran on Saturday mornings for 2 seasons in the late 90s. The only other Marvel heroes that had their own multi-season cartoons were Spiderman, X-Men, and Fantastic Four. That's A list.
Coming from someone who was around way before the MCU, Iron Man was so B-tier he may as well have been C-tier prior to the first movie.
The Avengers themselves were B/C-tier. The Avengers were not at all in the zeitgeist, and your average person had probably never even heard of them. Now your grandma probably knows who Thanos is.
Like you mentioned: Spider-Man, Batman, and X-Men. That was basically it. And even then, it was mostly Batman and Spider-Man. Those were not just the most marketable comic book characters in the 90's, they were probably the only marketable comic book characters to the mainstream. The fact that X-Men succeeded is a small miracle in and of itself.
You're confusing in-universe popularity with real world.
Yes, in the Marvel world, everyone knows who the Avengers are. Outside of it? Pre 2008? Definitely not.
Unfortunately if you weren't already a David Harbour, Yelena or Wyatt Russel fan, there wasn't much to compel you to go see this film in theaters.
I like Florence and Wyatt’s work outside of the MCU but them being apart of the MCU isn’t doing them any favours they are not big sellers one of the reasons this movie underperformed and the characters they play are seen as knockoff versions of 2 old heroes people couldn’t help but make comparisons to those 2 old heroes as well as the fact that they can’t pull in new fans into the brand which is a huge expectation from the producers and Disney if they are wise they will bail once their contracts are up and abandon the ship before it sinks.
I'm a David Harbour fan but kept getting blasted with ads of him acting like a brain damaged moron wheezing with laughter from some stupid comment, which was extremely off-putting and is a big part of what killed any interest I had in this movie. I'll see it eventually I guess, but it's the first ever MCU movie I felt that way about and didn't cave and find a crappy stream of if I didn't see it in theatres.
For me the coherent connected universe concept is well and truly dead after their spew of unrelated nonsense storylines and especially stuff like Secret Invasion which retcon things and only make them worst, and now I have no interest in watching what looks like bad episodes of a good overall story, because I no longer believe there is an overall story.
Similarly with Star Wars, after stuff like the sequel trilogy and Boba Fett immediately undoing the plot of Mando, the interest I had which let me watch often-subpar stuff like The Clone Wars and Rebels was gone, because it no longer felt like there was any real overall story which these were just bad episodes of, it was clearly directionless and there was no payoff for following the overall story.
I can definitely see that from the trailers alone, and FWIW I think a lot of that had to do with the editing of those. He was really great in the story itself and all of his antics worked great with the whole team. He was actually a really endearing character in the movie.
Edit: I removed my comment because I received like 20+ replies with exactly the same idea from an army of dum-dums
It's disappointing when good movies don't do well financially. Corporations tend to learn the wrong lessons.
It's not about their profit, it's about success.
If a good movie fails, they tend to stop making films of that quality.
If a bad movie succeeds, we get more bad movies.
It's about wanting more films like Thunderbolts*.
Yeah. I thought Thunderbolts* was a much better movie than Deadpool and Wolverine, though I enjoyed both. D&W absolutely cleaned up at the box office, whereas Thunderbolts* struggled. That's not how I would have preferred things to play out.
I have not seen Thunderbolts yet so I can't really comment on how it stacks up against D&W. But as far as putting butts in seats I don't think it ever had a chance at matching the interest in two of the biggest characters in Marvel's stable together in one movie.
It didn't.
Im sorry people really gotta stop worrying about box office. They're going to do what they want to do. Just go see the movies you think you'll enjoy and let that be it.
Don't get me wrong, my only concern with numbers is how it affects whether we see interesting characters in future projects.
But the result is going to be the exact same whether you are individually concerned about it or not.
Nothing is gained from random consumers worrying about a movies box office returns.
Every comic/movie sub im in has seemingly become full of 2 things over the last 6ish months, powerscaling vs. matchups and box office talk (both negative and positive). Making me want to mute the subs lately.
It’s always huge fans or huge haters that are concerned with those numbers.
Yep, and im so tired of it.
Im glad we didn't have to deal with this during the build up of the mcu.
I would argue that we didn't have to worry during the build up in part because every MCU film was doing great box office numbers. This meant that we could rest easy knowing that the characters/stories would continue and build. We got to just live in the hype.
Now, when a beloved movie like Thunderbolts does badly at the box office, it is concerning because the future for movies like these seems uncertain. It is not dumb to be talking about box office in relation to blockbuster films and I don't think anybody cares how much more Disney will line its shareholders' pockets with. But it's a business. Good movies will hopefully lead to good numbers which will hopefully lead to more good movies. Good movies but bad numbers makes things messy and worrisome.
Case in point for bad movies, the Michael Bay Transformer series.
Although it’s different for Marvel here because people actually liked Thunderbolts and in spite of the box office, it’s clearly showing that Marvel still has the juice to make good, well liked content since it’s apparently popular for people to go “Marvel is dead now.”
Now I’m curious what the original comment was
We’re worried because there are only going to be so many failures before the superhero genre becomes anathema again.
Eh, we're definitely far away from that.
Disney Co. is worth around 222B. If they give each person a billion each, they will still have 214B
😅Jk
No one is worried about Disney.
What we are worried about is them deciding MCU movies aren't financially viable anymore and thus refusing to make them anymore.
I just hope to see more of this groups dynamic!
I need Yelena and Bucky and a duo that would do so HARD!!
So they truly were the "Suicide Squad" of Marvel.
Budgets are out of control and I’m inclined to believe it’s just investor laundering
Wow this started kind of silly and got worse from there.
Lost me at ‘you can argue it’s better than GOTG 3’. I mean, yeah, you can argue anything, technically.
Highly doubt it was intended though they likely knew the profit wouldn't be amazing.
I thought it was “#1 in the world” for like 2 weeks? It seemed much more successful than the last few to me.
Alot of movies will do #1 in the world spots if its number 1 on the box office that week, even if overall its not going well
I find it absurd that this movie is being called a flop, just because of box office sales.
Does streaming not count?
People don’t go to theatres as much anymore, and for good reason. We have way bigger TVs, streaming is cheaper than a theatre, no gas needed, no driving time, and we can watch the movie in our PJs without listening to someone’s crying kid or that person who’s on their phone the entire time or whatever.
Marvel also spends an absurd amount on advertising, promoting, sending the actors out to promote, fast food deals, etc.
This movie - in my inexperienced opinion, is far from a flop.
Yes that’s literally what box office flop means lol look at Elio no one looks at streaming unless it’s streaming exclusive
"Does streaming not count?" are people watching it? Correct that.
Are people subscribing to watch it? cause since it's a disney original, they don't get money just for putting it there and letting it eat dust will they?
Streaming isn't the money maker that balances the books on Thunderbolts. It’s merchandising. Time will tell how many action figures, Lego sets, and T-shirts sell. We won't see the whole picture on Thunderbolts' profitability until after Christmas.
In addition to this, I saw an interesting analysis somewhere that said Thunderbolts is also world building for Marvel. It's a loss for sure, but having it go to D+ and probably do well there just builds more context and interest in the next big Avengers movie that will include these characters. Most Marvel content serves as some degree of built-in marketing for the next event piece, but this one is even more so.
The fact that the D+ marketing will likely include the name change will go a long way towards adding to that effect too.
It didn't flop. People with disney plus subscriptions are willing to wait a few months for the film to be released "for free." Disney created a system that competes against their own theater sales.
Also, reported movie costs are notoriously inflated.
So Cap 4 also didn't flop. Nice
"You can argue it is better than GOTG 3"
Holy coping Batman!
It had a 180 million dollar budget so obviously they thought it was going to do something. I just think they overplayed their hand.
I just wanted more sassy Yelena, her and Kate are probably my favourite duo because of Hawkeye. They were great. I really need more of them together.
Better than GOTG 3?!?!?!! You crazy
I finally saw it last night. It's not as good as this sub makes it out to be lol.
It’s so strange how this sub treats thunderbolts it wasn‘t bad by any means but the way they talk about it on here it makes it seem like you’re walking into schindlers list 2 or something is talking about mental health such a crazy new concept??
People like movies with good writting???? Wtf is happening???
Again never said it wasn't good unless you can point that out just not as good as people here say
Because this sub and the entirety of Reddit are run by diehards and they treat this team of characters and the young avengers characters as if they are popular even though they are not there’s too much praise going to them and yet the entire public doesn’t even give a fuck about them because they are loyal to the old and popular ones not this knock off legacy replacements.
Agreed. Either we have higher standards than this sub, or this sub is full of shills.
It's really really mid. And it has to be said.
I agree, I didn’t like it much. It wasn’t atrocious, just kind of bland. I’m not even being a hater I genuinely didn’t see what all the hype was about. The heart that the movie was trying to showcase felt forced or something to me. No shade to those who loved it, that’s great, but I was not among that number.
It wasn’t very good to me.
No it’s mid at best, 2 or 3 stars if you are actually being fair
I can't understand what anyone thought was good about it. Nothing really happened. What really got to me was two people having difficulties speaking English, speaking English when they are alone. It's nitpicky, and there are more issues with the movie, but it really got me.
It’s really fucking weird and concerning how many posts there have been recently on this subreddit about how Thunderbolts was so good, despite it being a flop. It seems almost systematic.
I guarantee that no one in this subreddit has any clue about film financials or budgets or plans so all this armchair analysis and creating narratives about studios and franchises being in trouble is incredibly counterproductive and harmful
It’s just over OK. The glory days will never come back. Let it go.
These movies have no soul not a single one of the marvel movies post endgame have a soul. That’s the MCU issue hell the actors even feel like they are acting as parody’s of the characters and playing them the way they think fans want them to play the characters and until then these movies will suffer.
Thunderbolts was a new property (not a sequel) and it also exists in a world where we have Disney+ so people know they can just wait and see it at home at no extra cost.
Those two factors were the reason it didn’t succeed as much financially
How do we know this money lost Disney money? I see people talk a lot as if they are Marvel’s personal accountants but they don’t release their numbers for things like this. Market budgets, revenue from Streaming, etc. We really have no idea how well a movie does beyond critical reception, nor do we know how pleased Disney or Marvel is with a projection until they speak on that in interviews.
General rule of thumb is the movie needs to make 2.5x its box office so the movie can be considered a hit.
Movie only made 2.1x its box office, so its not a complete hit for Disney, as the thing we have to remember is that the studios don't get to keep all of the box office, its got to be split between various parties.
So following that Thunderbolts needs to make abotu 430M so Disney can actually start seeing a profit.
Why does this keep popping up Blame digital services The film would have done better financially if people didnt wait for digital release
Box Office results is what matters most to the studio. we are no longer in the days where home release can save the film from being a flop.
It’ll be on Disney plus in a few months so why bother paying to see it in the cinema
It’s not going to lose 100 million. It cost $180 million which means it needed $450 to break even. It stands at $382 million. Then you ad in promo deals and streaming rentals/purchases then just becoming part of their catalog. It’ll be fine in Disney’s eyes. It should’ve done better though because it was really good. If it had come out in dead February like Cap 4 it likely would’ve. Or at least done better than CA’s $413 million total. (Which also had an official $180 million budget.) It had an awful release date in terms of competition.
I didn’t like it much for some reason. I think it’s because the heart I felt it was trying to have felt forced.
Some clown calls himself MarvelStudios and posts this?
Am I the only one who enjoyed this? It was better than like 80% of post endgame MCU.
It was a B-movie from the beginning, it included too much TV series content that the public is not interested in. I think that despite everything they are satisfied with the predictable results, after all the director of the X-Men reboot is the same as this film. However it is a bit sad to talk about box office, the film is wonderful, in my top 5 of the MCU, this is the important thing, not the box office
I disagree about too much tv series content. Walker was just a portion and Bucky has appeared in 5 films, highlighted in 2. The rest of the characters came from forgettable movies. 3 characters from black widow (4 if you count Julia Dreyfus from the post credits scene) and one from Ant-Man and the wasp. None of these characters were the lead in anything except maybe Bucky who had shared billing in CA:WS and TFatWS.
Yes, but they are secondary characters, Bucky hasn't had a major role since Civil War. Walker has his own path in the film, but for the general public he appears out of nowhere, the same goes for Ghost who is a villain from a 7-year-old film that is rather forgettable. They are all secondary characters.
Literally what even the fuck are you talking about
You really think this movie was better than No Way Home? I totally think it was one of the best movies since End Game, but I gotta put it 3rd.
It's hard - I just rewatched NWH and it has not aged well for me. I think I'm just really over the multiverse shenanigans. There have been three major multiverse movies at this point: NWH, MoM, and D&W. Movies where variants and universe hopping are a big part of the plot. It was real fun in NWH because it was our first exposure to it, but now that they've done it a few times, I'm less excited by it. Which is not good because it's going to be Doomsday's whole thing.
Back to my point - yes, my excitement level for NWH two months after seeing it was higher than my excitement level currently is for Thunderbolts. But if both were currently on Disney+ and my spouse (who has not seen either) was like, "let's watch one of these Marvel movies you love so much, what should we watch?" I'd definitely go for Thunderbolts over NWH.
I’m kind of sick of the multiverse era as well, but it’s also sort of a big deal that they discovered the freaking multiverse haha. To me, No Way Home is epic, has a significant storyline and has extremely memorable moments.
New Avenegers was such a good movie, and a much needed good movie on Marvels part as there had been so many flops lately (outside of GOTG3 and D&W). So it was perfectly timed. I can’t wait til it comes out on Disney +.
They hard to compare. I’m also a bit Spider-Man man to begin with, and just miss the Tony and Peter duo.
This movie is not better than Guardians 3 or Deadpool and Wolverine 😂🤣😭
For the last time, box office receipts isn't where profitability ends. Thunderbolts* will end up making Marvel money in the end for a variety of reasons.
You know why Coca Cola still spends over $4 billion dollars on advertising a year despite the fact that almost every single human alive knows that Coca Cola exists? Because it drives sales.
MCU movies are by and large feature length ads for Marvel and Disney. A film doesn't have to make a profit at the box office to make them a profit period.
Home media, TV licensing deals, driving subscriptions to Disney+. No, Thunderbolts* probably won't drive that many people to subscribe to Disney+ specifically to see it, but it will drive some subscriptions, certainly as part of a larger package of properties people would want to stream.
Merchandising: Both for Thunderbolts* and the MCU and Marvel in general. Refer back to the Coca Cola argument. Thunderbolts* just has to remind people that the MCU and Marvel exists when it comes to driving merch sales. "What should I buy my 5 yearold? -sees Thunderbolts* movie poster- Hmmm... I dunno if they'll like any of those characters, but that poster just reminds me that the MCU exists and that my 5 yearold loved that one Spider-Man movie. I'll buy them a Spider-Man toy."
Keeping the franchise alive: It's a critical darling. Plenty of critical hits don't make a profit at the box office. In fact, most Best Picture nominees lose money at the box office. Being a critical darling is a good for the MCU. Helps keep it relevant.
?
To me, the movie wasn’t all that great tbh. The critics loved it. The fans “supposedly” loved but I’m not shocked it flopped at the box office.
The movie was very boring and the jokes didn’t land at all. The action was surprisingly weak too. I liked Brave New World a whole lot better. I’ve watched that movie 20+ times so far.
Wow. Wild take. Glad you're finding something you like though.
I feel like all the reviews tried to oversell how “great” it was and how “marvel is back!” That when I actually did see it I was incredibly underwhelmed. It felt like not much even happened.
I’m probably the only one here who thought GOTG3 was a weak movie. Aside from Rocket’s backstory it was forgettable to me.
GOTG was a B-list team, it just happened that the movie was set at the right time.
Most of non avengers movies before Civil War weren’t breaking the bank in terms of BO numbers.
What makes a great marvel movie is a character driven film. Thunderbolts* was one. The big CGI battle is suposed to be the icing on the cake, not the reason the movie is made.
I think the bar of Box Office expectations is set way too high for the Studio/the fans. Thunderbolts* still made 400M at the BO. A flop for a movie like this would have been 200M. They’ll probably break even with streaming revenue and merch down the road.
It did not lose $100m. Not even if only the box office is considered.
Its 2.5x rule of thumb is $450m. It reached $380, $70m short of the target. But Disney only gets about half of the box office, so the actual shortfall for Disney would be $35m.
Now when VOD (#1 on the charts) and streaming are included that shortfall is erased. At the bare minimum, Thunderbolts should do at least as well as the Marvels which made Disney $40m from digital sales/rentals and Blu-ray and $90m from streaming.
So don't worry, the two hundred twenty billion dollar corporation is going to be OK!
I've gotta say, I have not enjoyed much of any Marvel stuff after Endgame. I liked Spider-Man, Dr. STRANGE, and Moon Knight. Everything else was forgettable
Thunderbolts is good but let's not exaggerate. It was a B-movie with B-tier characters, it was never going to be a billion dollars dunk like Disney was thinking. That's all there is to it.
I think street level characters are something we need more of. Well written and exciting ones that is. The mirroring of the old avengers either TBs (new black widow, new cap, new Thor (sort of with Sentry, god like presence), all hit really well. Not every character needs to be nuclear capable to be enjoyable to watch.
I can imagine that Ghost will be the next taskmaster lads! 😓
The movie is good not great. I don’t think it deserves to flop. If it was more generic and had more action it would’ve made more money. The story was well done and the dialogue was good. It is not a typical action superhero film. The lack of action is a weak point in terms of box office.
Also, the MCU is kind of at a low point to quote Deadpool. Bucky is the most famous character in the movie and he doesn’t do much. He’s still a great character though. If this was Phase 1 or 2, the movie would’ve done much better because of the hype the MCU had at that time. It’s really more circumstance than anything.
If your movie doesn’t have Iron Man, Thor, Thanos, Wolverine, or DOOM it’s not going to bring in a ton of money. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad film.
Should they have added more action/CGI to make more money? Probably not because the focus was on story. I honestly think, given the end of the film, that this was a “set-up” film meant to bring in Sentry and the “New Avengers” into the larger story. It was never meant to make $1 billion dollars.
I believe this move will pay off when DOOMSDAY releases because we understand the characters much better now. Honestly I think Sentry may be a huge plot point but who knows to be honest.
I looked up the budget. It’s $180 million. Then you add another $100 million for marketing and the theaters take their cut from the gross revenue. This film had to make $400 to $500 million just to break even. It’s a shame it didn’t, but it was critically well received and the audiences generally liked it.
Fantastic Four I believe will make a great deal of money for many upcoming story reasons and the fact that you have Pedro Pascal. So yes Disney knew this film wouldn’t be massive but it didn’t need to be for their overall plan to be successful long term
Marvel needs to understand, if it wants to go back to the days of Phase 1 to 3 they have to accept a flop it the story and critical response is good.
It takes time to regain good will and trust and this is why they may never climb back.
I havent even been going to theatres anymore, but thunderbolts despite its flaws has been the first MCU property in awhile that got me hooked.
This film should have been in Phase 4! (Near the start)
Well, they’re great characters and it’s a great story that people liked. It just wasn’t able to get enough people to come to the theater.
But it’s going to have a second life with streaming. Going forward it’s all about building off positive word of mouth and hype. Fantastic Four has to hit a home run.
Due to far too many TV shows and recent poor movie quality I finally tapped out of the MCU and stopped religiously going to the cinema to see them.
Wrong time!
Caught this on Amazon recently and it was great - a brilliant return to form, a decent emotional core and a good villain.
It's their own fault they "lost the audience" by this one, it's not this film itself.
Avengers doomsday feels like it was conceived over a weekend
This is an interesting throught for the movie. I like that idea....although Bucky will never be a B actor...hes been around too long haha.
Kinda fitting the theme of being Marvel's "suicide squad" then tbh
I watched it last night for the first time and loved it. It’s a great movie, interesting premise, good chemistry between the actors, and an interesting story.
In my opinion, the biggest issue was how much other Marvel stuff has been out recently. If they had nothing else Marvel come out this year, then had this come out in maybe September, it would have crushed. Imagine if we had a year+ break and then this dropped.
That being said, I know superhero burnout is heavily discussed online, so I assume this isn’t that unpopular of a take
the big thing marvel or disney in general don't understand is how detrimental disney+ is to their movies, especially the whole guaranteed available after x amount of months. It incentivises people to think, "nah I don't wanna use a bunch of money to go watch it on the big screen when I can do it "free" through streaming cuz i know it's coming"
This movie was shit, the story was subpar, and outside of Elena the performances were unremarkable.
Calling that a “compelling” movie is crazy lmao the bar is in hell.
Marvel really cooked with this one
What is this post trying to argue?
I think a real big issue is that the general public doesn’t care as much about marvel as the people in marvel circles do and the people in marvel circles have lost faith/don’t trust marvel as much anymore.
General public sees a movie like thunderbolts and doesn’t really recognise the characters and in order to be caught up with all of them they need to have seen many different projects (FatWS, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Ant-Man and the Wasp, Brave New World) which just seems pretty daunting it doesn’t come off as a movie you can just go watch there’s homework behind it.
As for people in marvel circles they’ve lost a little faith in marvel because it feels like a lot of their projects aren’t necessarily all working together to build towards a story and are more so all just being thrown at the wall and whatever sticks will be continued forward. Sure we know doomsday and secret wars are coming but a lot of the projects that have come out don’t necessarily feel like they’re building towards that in the same way the infinity saga’s movies did. It also just feels like a lot has been set up without any clear endgame in mind (young avengers, skrull invasion, doctor strange using the darkhold, symbiote, earths judgment by arishem, black knight, jake lockley moon knight, abomination at kamar taj, ten rings sending out a signal, hulks son etc) there’s a lot that’s been set up but it doesn’t appear that any of it is getting looked back on or wrapped up anytime soon.
Shang Chi and Wakanda Forever are better than both movies named lol
Disney isn’t stupid. A box office flop might sting up front, but it also means a massive write-off for the film division—just in time for end-of-year accounting. Then comes the holiday season, and suddenly those same characters are everywhere—action figures, costumes, LEGO sets. The losses get buried in tax breaks, and the profit shows up in Q4 and Q1 merchandising.
And while we argue over whether the New Avengers/Thunderbolts are the future of the MCU, Disney’s cashing checks—two team names, two branding strategies, double the merch. Cha-ching.
Taskmaster certainly was
You can not argue that Thunderbolts is better than Guardians 3
Ok I don’t understand, are people just soft because we really want a good MCU movie? This movie was boring… characters with no personality, bland story, not horrible, but not even close to the standard of any phase 4 movies. Am I really missing something? Every character has the “Tony stark” personality of cranking a joke every scene… how is that make it a good movie? Not even the music was as good as movies like Ant-man, Captain America or Thor films.
I think in hindsight they really were hoping to build anticipation for this movie cuz at least the post Endgame content was building up to the formation of this team
Is that voldemort on the right? With a huge wand?
I wanted to go see it I just couldn’t find the money nor time to do it but I’ll watch it when it comes to D+ for sure
It truly was, i freaking love this movie man. It's the only movie in phase 5 that made me rewatch it atleast 3x, and I'm sure that it wont be the last.
I didn't spend money on it because from the trailer i could tell it would be 1 hours and 45 minutes of glorified assassins being snappy to each other. 10 minutes of showing how Sentry is so strong you can't beat him, then 5 mins of sentry losing to the power of friendship.
If they had stronger characters or a weaker villain, I would have went.
It would’ve smashed if it came out in Quantumanias release window.
I liked it better than GOTG3 and Deadpool and Wolverine. My favorite since No way Home for sure.
Soooo.....The actual Marvel Jesus?????
They need to realise the hype died after EndGame and it’s incredibly unlikely they’ll reach those heights again. But ofc studios are always chasing their last big success
It's so sad bc this movie is their only good movie they've had in YEARS. All of their shows and movies have sucked dick. Especially GOTG3. That was just unbearable garbage.
I don’t think it was sacrificial, I think it did exactly what it was supposed to do.
Marvel’s movie momentum has halted, outside of their big tentpole movies. In large part because the audience doesn’t trust them to actually make good movies anymore.
Thunderbolts was an exercise in brand building. It might not have made boatloads of money, but critics and audiences liked it, and that’s going to lead to people being a bit more open to seeing what’s next.
This movie is if Guardians of The Galaxy didn’t have a talking Raccoon and Tree and the MCU was going downhill
Well Thunderbolts wasn't good. It was better then the steaming pile of sludge we normally get but not good.
A solid 3 over the 2's and 1's we've been used to.
Furthermore after years of kicking a dog why wonder why it cowers?
Thunderbolts could have been a 10/10 movie, it wasn't but if it was, why would anyone go see it after years of rancid sludge?
I mean before Thunderbolts we got
captain falcoln 4: brave new world order we made Sam fight hulk villains for no reason and also the celestial is here see guys we finally acknowledged it please stop asking about it.
After that afterbirth of a movie why the fuck would you see Thunderbolts?
It's like the opposite problem of Captain Marvel. Horrible movie but it came out between endgame and infinity war so literally anything could have come out between those films and it would have made billions.
It’s think they need to go back to the basics for the time being and focus on solo stories and put the focus of universe building to a minimal.
Tell a simple superhero story that just happens to exist in the a universe with other superheroes rather than a story that’s meant to set up another film/ franchise.
I can’t understand why the CEOs haven’t figured it out yet. It’s not a money problem. You can’t make a movie better by simply giving it a $200m budget.
You’re speaking about someone whose brain can only ever understand « more money=better ».
That’s like trying to explain the concept of color to an alien species without eyes.
Money is an addiction and people don't talk about it enough. The wealthy elite can only show off their wealth and discuss about how much they make and how much they can afford. So for big studio execs, obviously the more money a film is using the better it'll be because you're right. That's all they care about, money. Not their families, not the audience, not even themselves.
Seeking ultra wealth is 100% a collection of mental illnesses
Most rich people tend to like to gamble right?
Tell them it’s like betting $10 on blackjack with 5-1 odds, or betting $50 on horses for 6-1 odds
So... it's fun with no real risk?
/s (for the rich, the rush is completely worthwhile)
You had me until the /s
Fair point, fair point
We can use Rings of Power as a perfect textbook example of this.
Billion dollars spent on production. Obviously knows the IP can make money but restricted by the Estate.
So can only provide what they can dream up themselves to bridge the gaps in storytelling - which is frankly a pile of crap. The show runners & writers of the show are the biggest issue with the show as they have to fill the gaps while executives ask for every footnote they saw in Jackson’s movies.
Ah, so give it the budget of Hail Mary?
wow wow wow
wow
Saying wow a lot is tight!
Sinners has a budget of 90 mil and was one of the most well-shot and best-looking films I've ever seen. If Marvel could start making films even in the low 100s then all the sudden 380 mil (which is what Thunderbolts got) would turn a profit
Wait till you hear where some of the wardrobe for Sinners came from…lol. It was allegedly from the STILL unmade Blade movie. Ruth E. Carter confirmed it.
I can confirm that’s where they got the wardrobe from. They saved a lot of money doing it as well.
Yall say this and then flip out when the hulk cgi isn’t perfect
Damn good point
Good CGI is mostly a matter of time, money is also important but time is the most vital part when talking about quality.
Time is money.
The longer people spend time on working something, the more expensive it is.
Yes and no.
There is also the point that a tradesman can do a job in a week but will charge you a whole lot more if he needs to rush it in 4 days.
Venom is a $100M movie.
It showed though
eh, the CGI in venom was fine. The problem with that movie was the script.
Now do Kraven the Hunter!
Seriously, constraints often lead to better story telling anyway.
Why Dp1 was so good because of constraints.
I bet in the early days of Marvel, Feige and company were probably constantly arguing to get bigger budgets. They knew how to make movies, and were confident that bigger budgets could lead to bigger rewards. That led to Avengers in 2012, which STILL feels shocking to me that it happened. Studios didn't used to put out money for casts like that.
So then they get it, more money = more return. And the money printing machine keeps on printing money.
Then, as they do, they get greedy. They crank up the output and expect the same quality. For this. . . Well, watch the Bob's Burgers season 9 episode Tweentrepreneuts.
They cranked up the output way too hard. They should have gotten out ahead of their release schedule, Instead of releasing all the garbage tv shows. not that I play it anymore but Fortnite is many seasons ahead with their planning and their skin designs…
So why are we reshooting Daredevil Born Again. you should have it written well from the start, but no. You had to switch writers right before release. that alone is bizarre. then you’re doing reshoots right before release. you should write and film these things far in advance so reshoots are not so rushed.
I know nothing about movies, but it seems insane to me that bad/incomplete scripts are most common problem with blockbuster movies. Hiring people who can write a good script and putting them in a room, until they come out with a good story in their hand, should be the cheapest and most straightforward part of a movie.
Reading James gunn’s threads was really reassuring on that front and made me super excited for dc bc script status is a big chunk of what he talks about. ‘I’m not doing x movie until I have the script and it’s good’ ‘X actor wanted to pitch me a movie and I said bring me a script that doesn’t suck, then we’ll talk, and now he’s working on it.’ ‘X script is moving along and looking great!’ ‘Just received this long awaited script and it’s awesome’
He also implied that marvel might be reeling back to a more script based approach as well, hopefully thunderbolts was the visible start of that and the trend continues.
It is not uncommon for scripts to adapt and change during production for varying reasons, like the vision in the directors head changes when he sees the characters on set, or the chemistry between actors changes the energy in the scene, or the actor has spent enough time developing the character and thinks the script doesn’t quite match with the portrayal they have come up with.
That being said, marvel has notoriously been more “fly by the seat of their pants” than other studios from the beginning, with Ironman not even having a finished script when they started filming. But that gets a ton harder to pull off as more and more of their films require huge sets, crazy VFX, and hours long makeup routines. The movies require a ton of attention to detail and thus a lot of planning to go along with it, and that makes improv and reshoots more difficult; it also takes away from the whacky, fluid comic feel of some of the most successful early films.
It’s definitely got to be a very tough line to walk for fiege and the rest of the cast and crew.
Deciding to make tv shows with the movie making experts really, really bit them in the ass. Almost universal to the tv shows was the sense that they were just overly long movies. They lacked the structure of well done tv, they lacked the urgency of movies, and only went well a few times.
You've gotta' plan a tv show months in advance, and yeah, have the whole thing written before you start. Occasionally issues crop up with anything, but they went charging in knowing they weren't ready over and over and over.
What I can’t understand are these kinds of responses. The movie is good. OP just stated as much with this very post. So why would the response be “when are the marvel execs going to learn that throwing more money at a movie doesn’t make it better?”
Again, the movie is good. The issue wasn’t that it wasn’t better than it is. It’s that this particular group of B-team characters, marketed with a drab depression theme, was never going to attract a massive box office rush. So regardless of the movie’s (again, high) quality, it was going to fail at the box office.
It’s bc they spent $200m on a movie that didn’t need a $200m budget. Nobody said the movie was bad, I was saying the budget could be 50% of what it was and it would still have been good and profitable.
Yeah we don’t know that.
Regardless, this movie’s budget wasn’t the issue you’re stating it was.
The whole point of OP’s post was to ruminate on the theory that Thunderbolts was supposed to be a “sacrificial lamb”. That Marvel was taking a low-risk, high reward approach to it. $200m isn’t low risk. It wasn’t a sacrificial lamb, it was just a dumb choice.
I don’t understand why you think this post is not budget related. I don’t understand why you can’t relate what I said to OP’s statements.
I never said the post wasn’t about the movie’s budget. But this guarantee of yours that the movie would’ve been as good as it currently is if they made it with half the budget simply isn’t something that exists (I thought I made that clear by saying it twice before now).
We don’t/can’t know that and it’s weird to act like it’s a given. On the contrary, it’s probably safe to assume the opposite would happen.
The problem is that these movies naturally get more expensive when all the stars are A-listers, which is pretty much inevitable for a Marvel movie. Even if you don’t cast an A-lister, the star is all but guaranteed to become one through the power of the franchise.
Most of that budget comes from the 8 million reshoots every production ends up doing.
Actually, I looked at the production budgets versus world wide box office of all movies with a reported production budget of at least $80m and found a moderate (.57) correlation between the two.
Obviously increasing a randomly budget doesn't increase its box office, but a production that can spend $100m wisely can also spend $200m wisely. Conversely, cutting budgets isn't a guarantee that a movie won't flop. For every Sinners, there is a Mikey 17 or The Creator.
The constant reshoots add up
Or maybe y'all could just watch it instead of bitching 24/7
Huh? I did watch it….
I'm saying in general, it flopped because all MCU fans do is hate, and when casual viewers see that they'll eventually lose interest and not engage in the MCU at all, it wouldn't have flopped if the fans actually supported the MCU instead of spamming the same brain dead arguments
Well, yeah. That’s most MCU fans anymore. It’s cooler to hate something than to like it.
They also need to stop jumping straight to dropping 50 million dollars on top of the budget and doing six months of reshoots every time a test audience is lukewarm about a cut of a movie.
The real blame for the current state of the MCU though should fall directly on Covid, and Bob Chapeks absolutely terrible plan to respond to the pandemic by kicking MCU production into overdrive and flooding the market with more projects than audiences could keep track off in way to short of a time period to try and make up for the financial loss of closing the parks for a full year. Phase four had three times as many MCU projects as Phase one of the MCU, and it squeezed all of them into a year and a half long period when phase one lasted almost five years.