ScreenCrush: The Podcast! - Why did the Thunderbolts* Flop?

Episode Date: June 16, 2025

The Thunderbolts/New Avengers was supposed to be a return to form for Marvel Studios--a team-up movie with an A+ script, and a loaded cast. And yet, it made less money than Captain America: Brave New World. In this video, we talk about Marvel fatigue, the cast, and what the studio can do going forward to become a hit-maker once again. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle 3, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible Original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the Grandview's shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series.

Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. Silence is, oh, wait, hang on. Assignment is complete. Hey, welcome back, Screen Crush. I'm Ryan Erie. And let's talk about why the Thunderbolts bombed. So I'm going to walk you through all the reasons this movie was a flop

and offer some helpful advice on where I think the MCU could go from here. always remember we are on all your favorite podcast platforms and check out our screen crush merch store for a 20% off summer sale links are below so i don't get surprised that often when it comes to these movies but i was shocked by how little money the thunderbolts made just 370 million worldwide according to variety the movie needed to make 425 million dollars to break even when you account for marketing and worldwide releases over the past few years this was the movie that i was most excited about because you know i love a good marvel team-up film. And ever since Avengers Endgame, there hasn't been an Avengers team, and we've mostly

gotten small team-up films like Multiverse of Madness or Deadpool and Wolverine. So I think the MCU has really missed the cohesiveness that a Thunderbolts movie had to offer. And I also think that the film is really great. It's the best movie Marvel has released since Guardians 3. It's got heart, it's funny, and a real theme of battling depression. I like it better than Deadpool and Wolverine, and yet it made $1 billion less. Now, Captain America, Brave New World, and the Marvel's also didn't do very well, but they got bad reviews. So you could say that bad word of mouth tank those movies. It used to feel like every single Marvel movie was an event because you knew they were going to meet a certain threshold of quality. I mean, think about phase three where every single

movie was great. Well, the Thunderbolt seemed like it was a return to form. It got great reviews, 88% on Rotten Tomatoes, and it had just two screenwriters and a director with a strong vision, and it's also just so much fun. Plus, it had genuine movie stars and its lineup. David Harbor, Florence Pew Sebastian Stan. So what went wrong? Let's talk about a few reasons before I offer up what I think Marvel can do to get themselves out of this hole. First of all, the lineup. Yes, it's a Marvel team-up movie, but not many people were excited to see this particular team come together. In the comics, teams like the Avengers or the Justice League work because they're supposed to bring together all the most popular heroes into one place. Maybe you couldn't afford to buy issues of Ironman,

Captain America, and Thor, but instead you could just buy the Avengers and you get a bargain. This is why in the early 2000s, Wolverine and Spider-Man both joined the Avengers. It was getting all the most popular characters into one comic. But also, these movies offered variety. So think back to Phase 1 of the MCU. Iron Man, Hulk, and Thor, and Captain America, they were all very different characters from very different movies. So it was fun to see them team up together so we could see how they would interact. Bro, I got chills when I saw Steve and Tony standing together for the first time. And it was fun to see Tony Stark rip on Thor. The Avengers had this added thrill of seeing grounded characters like Iron Man stop an alien invasion

and then face off against Thor's villain Loki. But not a single member of the Thunderbolts has headlined their own film. Sure, Yelena and Red Guardian were standouts in Black Widow, and John Walker was a perfect D-bag in Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and Bucky was in some great, high-grossing movies, but never as the central character. None of these characters are popular, proven box office draws. So these characters also don't feel like they're from different corners of the MCU. Like I said earlier, there was a natural clashing to the first Avengers team because

they had such different backgrounds. But when they announced the lineup of the Thunderbolts, everybody was like, they're all assassins and super soldiers. I mean, they even make fun of this in the movie. So what, we all just punch and shoot? Hell, most of these characters have already appeared together in different movies or shows. So this was a team up of people who already knew each other, which meant that we couldn't be that excited to see them interact for the first time. Like, I think they had two criteria for this lineup. One, needed actors who were still under contract for Marvel movies. And two, they wanted characters who were losers. The point of this movie is that they want the misfits who don't belong so they can

find a place with each other. But if the whole point is that they're losers, maybe they could have brought in some villains that maybe were more familiar with. Or like Barron Zemo? Yes, Barron Zemo would have been great. But the problem with picking a team of losers that nobody cares about is that they're a team of losers that nobody cares about. Also, in the comics, the Thunderbolt started off as a team of villains who were masquerading as heroes. The first issue revealed that they were actually bad guys. So I feel like the name swap in this movie was trying to emulate that twist. After they revealed this was actually the new Avengers, Marvel Scurry to change all of the posters and marketing materials so people knew, hey, this is an Avengers movie. But I actually don't think

the movie would have done that much better had it been called the new Avengers from the start. I think to most people, calling this team of B-listers the Avengers cheapens the name because the Avengers are supposed to be like marquee stars of their own movies, brought together into one film. But also, I got to admit it, the MCU is getting too convoluted for most civilians to understand. To really understand and embrace this film, you would need to, at minimum, see, Ant Man 2, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Falcon and the Winter Soldier, all the Captain America movies, all the Avengers movies, and Wakanda Forever. That's at least 37 hours to watch.

Now, I do think the Thunderbolts did a great job of explaining who everybody is. The expository dialogue flowed well because there are some people in this movie, who are just meeting each other for the first time. But all of this backstory that you had to know probably kept people from going to see it in the theater, especially after Captain America Brave New World, which made no sense if you were not one of us. It also resulted in the president's Alex Estrangement

from his daughter, Dr. Betty Ross, Bruce Banner's ex-girlfriend. Now compare this to say Deadpool and Wolverine. You had two characters who had already headlined three franchises between the two of them. Sure, you kind of had to watch Loki seasons one and two to really understand what was going on, but you could still follow the gist of the plot without knowing that Loki is guiding the universe from a big tree.

The movie is Yellow Guy, Fights Red Guy. It's simple. But there's another huge culprit for this movie flopping. Marvel just doesn't feel like it's event programming anymore. What does that even mean? Well, Marvel movies and shows used to feel like events. You had to go see them because you had to know the whole story. The first Avengers movie was so much fun

that you had to know what happened to all these characters so you can enjoy the next film. But then, after Avengers' endgame, Marvel stopped making Avengers movies. This, I think, is the dumbest decision they have made in this saga. When you look at the top grossing MCU films, four out of five are Avengers movies. The Avengers weren't just big box office draws and fun team-ups.

They were culminations and rewards for watching everything else. So, like, let's say that you were a good fan, and you watched all of Phase 4. That's Wanda Vision through Wakanda Forever, including every episode of She-Hulk. based on the views that we got here on the channel, I think there was a lot of enthusiasm for that phase. Even movies that underperformed at the box office, like The Eternals and Shang Chi, still had fans tuning in to our channel to watch us talk about them. So after watching that phase, you would

naturally expect a culmination. You want Shuri to meet Cheehawk, meet Shang Chi, meet Sam Wilson. But when there was no team up, I think fans started to think, wait, where is this going? Now, look, I don't think we should watch art simply because we feel like we have to, but that is what a lot of fans enjoyed about the MCU. You felt like you were a part of a community that would be rewarded for understanding all of these different references. But as soon as the MCU stopped making Avengers movies, fans finally felt like they could just skip past something. And I think this really started with Secret Invasion. A lot of people watched that show. And when it turned out to be so, so, so very bad, the MCU started to feel more like homework than a fun clubhouse. Now, I should be clear here, I love most Marvel TV shows, especially when

they're good. But in the beginning, they also felt like they were required viewing, just like the movies. So maybe, going forward, I think the TV show should be treated as side adventures and maybe not required viewing for the films. Or at least, don't count on characters from the shows to be huge draws in the movies, unless those shows were giant streaming hits. For instance, I think the Mandalorian and Grogu is going to do great at the box office because those are two incredibly popular characters on the most watched Disney Plus show. And as much as I loved Ms. Marvel, you shouldn't treat Kamala Khan like she's a popular enough character to headline a major motion picture. Now, I did mention this earlier, but we are having a summer sale at our merch store right now,

20% off the whole site. We also have summer versions of our classic items, including beach towels, tank tops, and more. And for you and door fans, we just dropped this Calibrate Your Enthusiasm shirt, which is one of my all-time favorites. You can find links below and becoming a member of our merch store means that you can get free stuff. Join us. But guys, let's face it, the real problem here is that you used to go to a Marvel movie and you knew you were in for a good time. This studio gave us Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy, Black Panther, Ragnarok, plus all the Avengers movies, and they have a Rotten Tomatoes average of 79%. And I didn't look it up, but I guarantee you that the Infinity Saga average is closer to 90%.

So what the heck happened? Well, Doug, like always, things went bad when the money people got involved in making art. Especially post-pandemic, Disney needed their cash cow Marvel to over-generate content. Now, Marvel already had a version of this problem. They started their movies with visual effects before the screenplay was done, and then they didn't allow directors to direct the action scenes. This is how they were able to make so many movies in a short amount of time, but then it caught up to them when they added way too many projects,

and that's how we got, say, the unfinished CGI-I of She-Hulk and Quantummania, especially Quantummania, where visual effects artists were getting script changes daily and working 20-hour days just to hit deadlines. Now, I don't believe in superhero fatigue. I think there is mid-fatigue. took fans for granted, thinking we would always show up for everything, and then you stop showing up. The Multiverse saga was marred with prioritizing corporate greed over story, so the fans

lost faith. I also think the MCU was fun because of its unpredictability. Movies like Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy offered us stories and characters that we had never seen before, and recent movies like the Marvels and Brave New World felt like more of the same. Even though I liked both of those movies, I wouldn't necessarily rush to re-watch them in theaters. But then again, People don't really rush to theaters to see much of anything these days. During the pandemic, studios were desperate for cash flow, so they tried to stake acclaim in the streaming space, like Warner Brothers released Tenant on Max the same day as in the theaters,

causing Christopher Nolan to walk away from the studio. Disney squandered great Pixar movies like Soul and turning red by sending them straight to Disney Plus. Audiences just don't go to the theaters as much, and why would you? People are on their phones when you're there. It's way too expensive to see a movie, and the movie is just going to be on streaming in a few weeks. So in their rush to become Netflix, these traditional studios have given up the revenue stream of Blu-ray sales, and they've undermined their box office revenue. I think they all need to start waiting a long time before releasing movies on digital in order to stoke demand.

Orbert, what are we supposed to do about all this? Do we shut down the store? Person, are we poor? Nah, dude, Marvel can totally go back to where it was after Secret Wars, but they have to go... Back to Formula. The next Marvel phase is probably going to set up the Mutant Saga and bring an all-new X-Men team into the MCU. So I think the prospect of seeing a new Avengers team

made up of A-listers fight the X-Men would be really fun. Avengers versus X-Men, it prints money. But Marvel needs to go back to basics. Focus on one movie or show at a time, telling compelling character-based stories. Don't assume that your fans are going to remember what happened in the Incredible Hulk and the Eternals. I also think that after the Infinity Saga,

Marvel thought we wanted more complex space stuff. But the Multiverse saga and alternate universes are just too complicated to comprehend. Like, I still don't know the differences between a timeline and a universe. Well, you see, timelines are contained within it. Shut up. I don't care. I shouldn't have to know that information to enjoy a movie.

The Infinity Saga worked because, at its core, it was just about six rocks that are different colors. Even a baby can understand that concept, and that is all you need to know. Incursions, entire universe is exploding, different gangs and very... It's just, it's a lot to handle. To call it the whole, the Multiverse Saga is out of control. I'm so impressed by that reference. So I would like to see it. the MCU go lower budget. Focus on characters like Shang Chi, but you know, no CGI lasers. Like Jerry

McGuire said, fewer clients, less money, put Shang Chi in a grounded street fighting movie. Give us something that we don't expect, blend different genres together like you did in the Winter Soldier. Maybe, I don't know, complete a script before you start on the visual effects. James Gunn Superman is showing us the value of putting script and story ahead of the needs of the franchise. And also, please keep making TV shows, but use traditional showrunners, like we saw on Daredevil Born Again, X-Men 97, What If, Agatha all along, and the upcoming show Vision Quest. Also, don't take the audience for granted. Don't assume we'll just come see a movie because it says Marvel on it. But most of all, don't be afraid to be a little small. I think after endgame, Disney thought that they

just wanted to rush ahead to the next two billion dollar record-breaking movie as fast as possible. So they went bigger and bigger, adding more and more characters, but instead go small. Introduce cool characters, bring them together for a large team-up, but then build it from there into something massive. The Thunderbolts didn't flop because it was a bad movie. It flopped because it's the culmination of years of bad decisions. Fans want these movies to be good. We are rooting for this studio to succeed. And I think all they have to do is just go back to what worked. Stop listening to the people in suits and listen to the artists. But guys, that shows us that I think. Did you actually see the Thunderbolts? What did you think about it? Let us know your thoughts down in the comments

below or at me on Twitter, Blue Sky Threads, or on our free-to-join Discord server. And if it's your first time here, please subscribe and smash that bell for alerts. For Screen Crush, I'm Ryan Erie.