Do people expect Marvel's The Thunderbolts to become a huge success?

[BrianL]

Have you all seen the Superman trailer? It’s looks really really good. We may finally be getting a good Superman movie!

It looks good, though I am not sure about some aspects of it. I remain tentatively optimistic. DC movies have been so bad for so long, I don't want to rush in with too high of expectations.

 

[HokieRaven5]

It looks good, though I am not sure about some aspects of it. I remain tentatively optimistic. DC movies have been so bad for so long, I don't want to rush in with too high of expectations.

Can James Gunn do a solo superhero movie? Even this looks like Guardians/Suicide Squad featuring Superman

 

[BrianL]

Can James Gunn do a solo superhero movie? Even this looks like Guardians/Suicide Squad featuring Superman

We'll see. He seems to get Superman pretty well, but there are other things in the movie that I am not so sure about.

 

[PolymerSkywalker]

It looks good, though I am not sure about some aspects of it. I remain tentatively optimistic. DC movies have been so bad for so long, I don't want to rush in with too high of expectations.

Agreed

 

[PolymerSkywalker]

I do think Superman is a hard one to get right in a movie. He is a little like Captain Marvel in that he is so insanely powerful that the stakes can seem not very dire. His supporting characters must add the stakes imho.

 

[Dust2]

I just saw it over the weekend. It has a very relatable message and is in my top 3 Marvel movies of all time. It will be a hit in my humble opinion.

 

[nancipants]

I do think the movie hits on exactly it hasn't made a bigger splash at the box office - nobody cares about these characters! As good as it is, they just won't draw people in. Marvel has got to learn that the name doesn't mean anything - you can call it "Avengers" but nobody will care if it doesn't have The Avengers in it - the Avengers being people named Tony, Steve, Bruce, Clint, Natasha, and...Thor!

I will disagree that people don't care about Bucky Barnes. Bucky has a HUGE following but the MCU never really handled his character well, except for maybe in The Winter Soldier.

 

[BrianL]

I will disagree that people don't care about Bucky Barnes. Bucky has a HUGE following but the MCU never really handled his character well, except for maybe in The Winter Soldier.

Well, he's definitely on the more popular end of the spectrum of those in the movie. He could definitely fit in with the "big names" in the Avengers, but I don't know that he could carry it on his own. The other T-Bolts characters though....

In the words of Yelena, "This is why we're the Avengerz with a Z."

 

[mdmost]

Maybe the box office for this and Cap 4 is just the new normal now. The only time Marvel might have a box office winner is when they do another nostalgia play like Deadpool & Wolverine. We certainly have that coming up with the two Avengers movies with people from Fox movies and RDJ coming back. I guess we'll see with Fantastic Four but that story has certainly been done before.

 

[PolymerSkywalker]

Cap 4 was without Cap though.

I think Marvel is kinda paying for all the bad to mediocre releases since End Game.

If it’s great and with good word of mouth, the box office will be there. Only Deadpool and Wolverine has had that in recent years.

 

[BrianL]

The thing is, they're not even bad films, just some of them aren't about what people want them to be about. They're still pretty decent, but they lack what they had before Endgame. Outside of Spider-Man, Thor, & Guardians, people are like...who? The thing is, before Endgame people might have said that about Guardians, but they had built so much good-will, that people were down for it. Notice they didn't START things with GOTG or Ant-Man, right? The thing is though, it's not liek the Prre Endgame moveis are significantly "better" than the post Endgame ones - I mean a lot of them are the same movie, or at least the same formula. It's just, over that long of a time, interest can't be sustained when the people they want to see are gone.

The comic book industry seems to have to constantly learn and re-learn that lesson. The characters aren't replacable titles that can apply to anybody, it's about the characters. They are the important thing (and in movies, tha actors are important too!). Sure, you can tell a good story with a new person as Batman, but he'll never really BE Batman and fans will never be as interested as they are in Bruce Wayne. Sometimes you go along for the ride with the promise of a return to the status-quo, but that's not really possible in movies that operate in real-time with aging principles. Comic books can be good...until they're not. The same seems to apply to the MCU, which is the closest thing to comics we've ever seen in film. Look at DC? It's back to basics there! Is the lesson learned though? Only for now....

 

[PolymerSkywalker]

The thing is, they're not even bad films, just some of them aren't about what people want them to be about. They're still pretty decent, but they lack what they had before Endgame. Outside of Spider-Man, Thor, & Guardians, people are like...who? The thing is, before Endgame people might have said that about Guardians, but they had built so much good-will, that people were down for it. Notice they didn't START things with GOTG or Ant-Man, right? The thing is though, it's not liek the Prre Endgame moveis are significantly "better" than the post Endgame ones - I mean a lot of them are the same movie, or at least the same formula. It's just, over that long of a time, interest can't be sustained when the people they want to see are gone.

The comic book industry seems to have to constantly learn and re-learn that lesson. The characters aren't replacable titles that can apply to anybody, it's about the characters. They are the important thing (and in movies, tha actors are important too!). Sure, you can tell a good story with a new person as Batman, but he'll never really BE Batman and fans will never be as interested as they are in Bruce Wayne. Sometimes you go along for the ride with the promise of a return to the status-quo, but that's not really possible in movies that operate in real-time with aging principles. Comic books can be good...until they're not. The same seems to apply to the MCU, which is the closest thing to comics we've ever seen in film. Look at DC? It's back to basics there! Is the lesson learned though? Only for now....

Solid take Brian. I agree with much of this.

 

[DodgerGirl]

I think people will think The Thunderbolts will be the new Avengers and Bucky Barnes will become very popular due to The Thunderbolts just like Sam Wilson did in Falcon And The Winter Soldier when it debuted. But what Marvel should do is create a movie about Barney Barton who is Hawkeye's brother Trickshot and it would get strong reviews and it would be a hit. But based on how well The Thunderbolts movie is doing we might see The Thunderbolts II being made in the future very soon

 

[Obi-J Kenobi]

The reason why Infinity War and Endgame were box office smashes and quality movies is because the MCU earned it with many, many film releases leading up to that end story. Not every MCU movie leading up to IW and Endgame were a smash or awesome, but many, many films were quite good and quite successful.

Since Endgame, the MCU films and D+ series haven't done enough to "earn" success.

 

[Moliphino]

The reason why Infinity War and Endgame were box office smashes and quality movies is because the MCU earned it with many, many film releases leading up to that end story. Not every MCU movie leading up to IW and Endgame were a smash or awesome, but many, many films were quite good and quite successful.

Since Endgame, the MCU films and D+ series haven't done enough to "earn" success.

The films since Endgame should be compared to the individual MCU movies before it, NOT to IW and Endgame.

 

[HokieRaven5]

Post Endgame MCU budget: $3.269B for 14 films avg $233.5M per film

Box office (so far): $10,465,674,926 or $747,548,209 per film

3.2x multiplier across the totality so far.

Tack on PVOD and licensing, they’re doing alright post End Game.

 

[Obi-J Kenobi]

The films since Endgame should be compared to the individual MCU movies before it, NOT to IW and Endgame.

I was comparing the movies post-Endgame to the the movies pre-IW. Those individual films built a narrative that paid off with IF and Endgame. I do not believe the MCU's individual films post-Endgame have built a narrative that will pay off with the future Avengers movies.

I fully expect gimmick-y types things like Robert Downy Jr. will be portray both Tony Stark and Victor Von Doom, and then some characters will be presented as versions of good, bad and something in between. At least that was it felt like the MCU was doing with a very good actor -- Jonathan Majors -- and the Kang character and Hugh Jackman and the Logan character. I don't work for Marvel Studios and have no inside information. But, I don't think the D+ series and individual films have earned a great payoff.