‘Thunderbolts’ strikes big, topping North American box office with US$76 million in weekend ticket sales
[LOS ANGELES] New Marvel superhero film Thunderbolts triumphed over the North American box office last weekend, raking in an estimated US$76 million in a promising start to the summer movie season, industry watcher Exhibitor Relations reported on Sunday (May 4).
Thunderbolts features Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, Wyatt Russell and David Harbour as a motley bunch of antiheroes. Julia Louis-Dreyfus plays a malevolent CIA chief.
“This is a very good opening for a new superhero story,” said analyst David Gross of Franchise Entertainment Research. With “excellent” reviews and audience scores, the film should “play extremely well around the world”, he said.
Comscore analyst Paul Dergarabedian said in a post on X that “this kickoff film of the summer movie season will ignite an epic month of May for movie theatres”.
Ryan Coogler’s period vampire thriller Sinners starring Michael B Jordan slipped to second place but still took in US$33 million in its third weekend since release, a showing The Hollywood Reporter described as “phenomenal”.
Warner Bros’ video game adaptation A Minecraft Movie, starring Jack Black and Jason Momoa, rose one spot from the previous weekend to third, earning US$13.7 million for the Friday-through-Sunday period.
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It remains the top release of the year, with total US ticket sales of US$398.2 million and international sales of US$475 million for a total of US$873.2 million.
Fourth place went to Amazon MGM Studios’ The Accountant 2, at US$9.5 million. Ben Affleck plays a neurodivergent math genius with criminal ties, and Jon Bernthal is his hit-man brother.
In fifth was another video game adaptation, Sony’s gory horror film Until Dawn, at US$3.8 million.
Alec Baldwin’s ill-fated Western Rust – made infamous when a weapon held by Baldwin discharged a bullet, fatally wounding the film’s cinematographer – finally opened in a limited release of 115 cinemas. It took in just US$25,000, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Rounding out the top 10 were: The Amateur (US$1.8 million); The King of Kings (US$1.7 million); Warfare (US$1.3 million); Hit: The Third Case (US$925,000); and The Surfer (US$675,000).
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