Box Office: Thunderbolts crushes expectations with USD 11.5M previews; among summer’s 10 best openings ever

Marvel Studios’ Thunderbolts is off to a striking start at the US box office, pulling in USD 11.5 million from Thursday previews. The Florence Pugh and Sebastian Stan-led superhero film has officially delivered the 9th biggest Thursday preview ever for a summer release, outpacing industry expectations and setting the tone for what could be an impressive weekend.

With this figure, Thunderbolts edges past Eternals (USD 9.5 million) and is nearly on par with Venom: Let There Be Carnage (USD 11.6 million), Captain America: Brave New World (USD 12 million), and Dune: Part Two (USD 12 million). The preview total also places it just behind Black Widow (USD 13.2M), marking a strong return for the MCU brand after a string of box office underperformances.

If positive word of mouth sustains momentum through the weekend, analysts are projecting a 3-day opening between USD 80 million and USD 85 million, giving Marvel one of its more robust domestic debuts in recent memory.

Here’s how Thunderbolts ranks among the biggest summer preview nights in history:

• Avengers: Endgame — USD 60M
• Avengers: Infinity War — USD 39M
• Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness — USD 36M
• Avengers: Age of Ultron — USD 27.6M
• Captain America: Civil War — USD 25M
• The Avengers — USD 18.7M
• Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 — USD 17.5M
• Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 — USD 17M
• Thunderbolts — USD 11.5M

Directed by Jake Schreier and written by Eric Pearson and Joanna Calo, Thunderbolts brings together an ensemble cast including Wyatt Russell, Olga Kurylenko, David Harbour, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and more. The film centers on a team of antiheroes forced into a perilous mission, expanding the MCU’s narrative scope while wrapping up Phase Five.

Development for the film began in 2022, with key creatives from Netflix’s Beef joining the project the next year. Production, however, faced delays due to the Hollywood strikes that same year but resumed and wrapped by mid-2024. Thunderbolts had its world premiere on April 22 at London’s Empire Leicester Square and officially opened in the US on May 2.

With its better-than-expected start, Thunderbolts is poised to reignite box office energy for Marvel, proving that audience appetite for bold storytelling still remains strong.

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