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Time of India
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
'Thunderbolts' tops global box office with $162 million haul; 'Hit 3' makes it into Top 10 list with $800K collection
Marvel Studios ' "Thunderbolts" opened with $76 million in domestic ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday, kicking off the summer box office with a solid No. 1 debut that fell shy of Marvel's more spectacular launches. All eyes had been on whether "Thunderbolts" - a team-up of antihero rejects similar to "Avengers" - could restore the Walt Disney Co. superhero factory to the kind of box office performance the studio once enjoyed so regularly. The results - similar to the debuts of "The Eternals" ($71 million) and "Ant-Man and the Wasp" ($75 million) - suggested Marvel's malaise won't be so easy to snap out of. The film also scored a global opening of $162.1 million, including $86.1 million from international markets. This worldwide launch falls within the projected range set before the weekend. Internationally, the Florence Pugh-led release premiered at No. 1 in nearly all major and most smaller territories. Its overseas debut is estimated to be 45% ahead of Shang-Chi, 13% above Ant-Man, and 7% over Guardians of the Galaxy in comparable markets at current exchange rates (excluding China). Some had expected a bigger opening for "Thunderbolts" because of the film's good word-of-mouth. Unlike most recent MCU entries, reviews (88% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) have been excellent for "Thunderbolts," directed by Jake Schreier and starring Florence Pugh , David Harbour and Sebastian Stan. Audiences gave it an "A-" CinemaScore. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Google Brain Co-Founder Andrew Ng, Recommends: Read These 5 Books And Turn Your Life Around Blinkist: Andrew Ng's Reading List Undo That kind of response should power the movie to strong business in the coming weeks. 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 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." The Walt Disney Co. also might not have expected such stout competition from Ryan Coogler's "Sinners." The Warner Bros. release, which had led the box office the last two weeks, continued to hold remarkably well. In its third week, it grossed $33 million, a dip of only 28%. "Sinners," a 1932-set vampire movie about bootlegging brothers (both played by Michael B. Jordan ) who open a juke joint in their Mississippi hometown, has proven a spring sensation in theaters. It has collected $179.7 million domestically and $236.7 million globally thus far. Warner Bros. also nabbed third place with "A Minecraft Movie," the smash-hit video game adaptation. In its fifth weekend, it rung up another $13.7 million to bring its North American gross to nearly $400 million. Worldwide, it has totaled $873.4 million. Warner Bros. added "Block Party Edition" screenings over the weekend for a sing-along and "meme-along" experience. The film has seen some rowdy screenings from TikTok-inspired moviegoers. More than three years after cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was killed on set, the Alec Baldwin western "Rust" arrived in theaters. Its release brought some closure to one of Hollywood's greatest tragedies. Distributor Falling Forward Films didn't report box office, but estimates suggested "Rust" grossed approximately $25,000 in 115 theaters. Following Hutchins' death, the film's armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, was sentenced to prison for involuntary manslaughter. First assistant director David Halls was sentenced to probation after pleading no contest to negligent use of a deadly weapon. Involuntary manslaughter charges against Baldwin, a co-producer on the film, were twice dismissed, in 2023 and again in 2024. As part of a wrongful death settlement, Matt Hutchins, Hutchins' husband, was made an executive producer on the film. Also opening over the weekend was "The Surfer," starring Nicolas Cage as a man trying to surf a "locals-only" Australian beach. The Madman Films release collected a modest $674,560 from 884 theaters. Top 10 movies by domestic box office With final domestic figures being released Monday, this list factors in the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore: 1. "Thunderbolts," $76 million. 2. "Sinners," $33 million. 3. "A Minecraft Movie," $13.7 million. 4. "The Accountant 2," $9.5 million. 5. "Until Dawn," $3.8 million. 6. "The Amateur," $1.8 million. 7. "The King of Kings," $1.7 million. 8. "Warfare," $1.3 million. 9. "Hit: The Third Case," $869,667. 10. "The Surfer," $674,560.
CBC
29-04-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Thunderbolts*: MCU's first sign of life in years is obsessed with death
Florence Pugh-led superhero romp handles surprisingly serious subject matter The Marvel Cinematic Universe hasn't exactly been in a perfect headspace lately. First, the perhaps unfairly panned The Marvels failed to generate hype over a new crop of superheroes buttressing the MCU's crumbling facade. Then, a procession of weakly received, minimally watched series failed to ferry fans over the gap between the old Avengers' departures and the much-awaited arrival of the Fantastic Four and finally (finally) mutants. Then, the almost supernaturally bland Captain America: Brave New World failed to do anything other than examine how much boredom a human mind is actually capable of experiencing. The less said about that, the better. So to say Marvel has been on something of a downward spiral is probably a bit of an understatement. And it would make sense for some of the writing to reflect that — a little bitterness, or even ennui, seeping into storylines otherwise made cheery by all that neon spandex, millennial quippiness and saving the world from the forces of evil. What was not expected was Thunderbolts*: a Suicide Squad -adjacent tale of ragtag misfits but so infused with themes of depression, nihilism and death it could almost work as a spiritual sequel to Donnie Darko. But what was maybe even more unexpected is that those ingredients turned into a formula that is — for all intents and purposes — a pretty great movie. MCU backstory baggage But just to catch you up for Thunderbolts*, here's where we stand. Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), professional assassin and pseudo-sister to Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow, is working as a criminal-for-hire. She's in and out of secretive government labs with all the glum professionalism of A Christmas Story 's mall Santa — dutifully predicting where to stick her knee or boot well before her marks even know what hit them. It's all meaningless, though. As she tells a bound and gagged man she's currently robbing, she's drifting through her own life like a river. Or like an old leaf. Or like an old leaf in a river. Or whatever — she's barely even listening to herself at this point. Because, you know, what even is the point? What she needs is a change: one her sort-of father, sort-of retired, sort-of Soviet superhero Red Guardian (David Harbour) tells her can only be found in a cheering, adoring crowd. In search of the hero's life that might just give her meaning, she tells her handler and current CIA director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) she wants something more fulfilling, more heroic, more public-facing. Can Deadpool & Wolverine make the MCU fun again? Robert Downey Jr. reveals at Comic-Con he'll play Marvel film villain Doctor Doom This comes at a difficult time for de Fontaine, though; she's currently embroiled in an impeachment trial getting ever closer to discovering her criminal dealings. The solution? Send Yelena for one last job. Tell her she just needs to assassinate Ava Starr (Hannah John-Kamen) — the teleporting anti-hero from Ant-Man and the Wasp — whom de Fontaine claims is headed to her bunker to steal evidence of her illegal work. But when she gets there, Yelena also encounters John Walker (Wyatt Russell), the disgraced, temporary Captain America replacement now on de Fontaine's payroll — and apparently hired to assassinate her in turn. What follows is your typical Mexican standoff misunderstanding, as all three quickly figure out they're loose ends de Fontaine merely means to tie up — either by them finishing one another off or via the furnace jets waiting overhead in the now-locked room. What de Fontaine didn't expect, however, was the professional criminal delinquents somehow managing to get over their egos to team up. Even less expected, though, was the man who crawled out of a box in the confusion. He says his name is Bob. Bob Reynolds. And he has no more of an idea over how he got there than we do. For those hoping for a pure surprise, it would be best to stop here. But for even casual comics fans, it shouldn't come as much of a shock over who this man ends up being. Robert (Bob) Reynolds, better known as Sentry, is right up there with Molecule Man, Adam Warlock and Franklin Richards as among the most powerful human-ish characters on offer. Operating as a sort of Marvel Superman analogue, there's little he can't do, few he can't beat. Played here by Lewis Pullman, the Sentry's main comics flaw is equally his downfall here: a man gifted powers through a super serum that did nothing to solve the deep and overwhelming mental health problems at his core. Out of that convoluted introduction, comes a more straightforward theme. From Yelena's flailings toward meaning and away from her trauma-soaked childhood, to Walker's self-destructive distance from his family, to the Red Guardian's painfully strong but faded memories of being important once, all the way to Bob's volatile reckoning with the violent void inside himself, Thunderbolts* is almost shockingly direct in its message. This is a film about pain, about pointlessness — Pugh is Thunderbolts* ' true heart here, and from the morose, self-defeating monologue she delivers at the top all the way to the painful memories dredged up toward the end, she hammers that point home. That is in the face of some plot flabbiness. Sebastian Stan's Bucky Barnes appears to be more or less the famous face tacked on for MCU continuity's sake, and the political intrigue subplot he spars in alongside a fellow congressman (Wendell Pierce) and de Fontaine's assistant (Geraldine Viswanathan) barely holds together. Meanwhile, Sentry's creation ends up being only slightly less ridiculous and hard to believe than in the comics — a lingering issue as super serums make super powers more common, and the abilities they grant necessarily become more and more powerful to compensate. But it almost doesn't matter as Bob's storyline pulls in what is one of the most surprisingly incisive and boldly discomfiting elements since Killmonger's depressingly convincing villain monologue in Black Panther. In the comics, Sentry's main weakness is his own depression, self-hatred and shame — a nagging sense of inadequacy and terror so powerful it gains its own mirror identity as "the Void." Ignoring this film's likely record of being the first Marvel movie to recognize the existence of meth, the way it grapples with those themes feel uniquely direct. Questions of meaninglessness, loneliness, worthlessness and the occasionally appealing allure of death all find their way into a franchise shared with Cosmo the Spacedog and giant screaming space goats. And despite a slightly after-school-special handling in the end, the vast majority of the film feels like it understands how paralyzing those emotions can be. Multiple times characters tell others they understand the call of the void — the unnervingly common impulse to flirt with certain death. The opening moments of the film even feature Yelena stepping balletically from the edge of a building; only seconds later do we see she has a parachute. This is not to say Thunderbolts* is overwhelmingly dour — there are all the effective, jokey one-liners you'd expect from an MCU epic. But there's something darker there too, handled with more seriousness, respect and directness than feels possible. It's a refreshing sign of life from a franchise that long ago seemed to have given up the ghost.
