May is here, and so is the summer movie season, starting with Thunderbolts. Marvel’s newest movie isn’t just a hit with audiences and critics, it’s also taking off financially.
Domestically, the film has opened to $76 million at time of writing, per the Hollywood Reporter. That’s slightly past expectations pegging it in the $70-75 million range, and puts it over the 3-day openings for Shang-Chi ($75.4 million) and Eternals ($71.3 million), and a bit behind Black Widow’s ($80 million). Its international take was $86.1 million, resulting in a total of $162.1 million globally.
Marvel’s been marketing Thunderbolts like mad over the last few months with trailers, ads, and cereal box stand-ins promising a dysfunctional team-up between fairly recent and somewhat older MCU antiheroes. That, combined with the mystery over the asterisk’s place in the title and the team’s place in Avengers: Doomsday, did a lot to court audience interest. It also doesn’t hurt that Marvel was openly proud of this one; there were pre-release IMAX screenings and assurances that this was going to be a Real Movie and not something disposable.
With Marvel in play, Sinners fell to second place in the domestic box office. This weekend, it made $33 million, down 28% from the previous weekend. Its total is now $179.7 million domestically and $236.7 million globally. That number will likely grow when it comes back to IMAX for a few days beginning Thursday, May 15, and analysts think it’ll end its theatrical run in the $330-400 million global range. Minecraft, Warner Bros.’ other spring hit, is now at $873.4 million thanks to Japan’s Golden Week, and it might end up at $1 billion if that hold stays strong.
Speaking of staying strong, Until Dawn’s managed to hold out since its late April release. Domestically, it made $3.8 million—a 52.5% drop from last weekend, but its international take was $6.4 million, a somewhat better decline of 36.6%. It’s now made $34.8 million total and could have a solid run when all’s said and done.
Next in May, our genre flicks include Clown in a Cornfield (May 9), Final Destination Bloodlines (May 16), the Memorial Day one-two of Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning and Lilo & Stitch (May 23), followed by Karate Kid: Legends (May 30).
