“Thunderbolts” framed as underrated Marvel

Marvel’s Thunderbolts* has turned into a very specific kind of Marvel story — not the giant hit, not the total disaster, but the movie people keep insisting was better than its box office. That gap is the whole reason the “underrated” label is sticking. The film opened in theaters on May 2, 2025, drew notably stronger reviews than a lot of recent MCU releases, and still finished with a worldwide total that looked soft by Marvel standards. Then streaming arrived, and the conversation changed. ### Why are people calling it underrated? Because the basic split is easy to see. Critics and audiences were pretty warm on the movie, but ticket sales never matched that enthusiasm. Rotten Tomatoes has it at 88%, with the site’s summary leaning hard into Florence Pugh’s standout turn and the movie’s back-to-basics MCU energy. But Box Office Mojo shows a $74.3 million domestic opening and a domestic total of about $190.3 million — decent for many franchises, underwhelming for Marvel. (rottentomatoes.com) ### Was it actually a flop? Basically, by MCU expectations, yes. By normal-movie expectations, not really. The movie ended its run at about $382.4 million worldwide, which is a real audience, just not the kind of audience Marvel used to treat as routine. That’s why the framing got messy. A film can be well-liked and still disappoint financially if the brand usually plays at a much higher level. (screenrant.com) ### So what did people like about it? Turns out the appeal was that it felt smaller, stranger, and a little less corporate than the usual assembly-line MCU entry. The cast is built around antiheroes and castoffs — Yelena Belova, Bucky Barnes, Red Guardian, Ghost, Taskmaster, John Walker — and the pitch was more dysfunctional-team drama than shi(screenrant.com)e, and Florence Pugh’s performance became the easiest shorthand for why the movie worked. (rottentomatoes.com) ### Why didn’t that translate to theaters? The catch is that “good” and “must-see opening weekend” are different things. Thunderbolts* didn’t have the automatic event status of Avengers, Spider-Man, or even Guardians at their peak. It was also arriving after a stretch where Marvel’s brand had lost some of its old no-questions-asked momentum. So the movie seems to have lande(rottentomatoes.com)open to it. (movieweb.com) ### What changed on streaming? Disney+ gave the movie a cleaner pitch: skip the opening-weekend decision, just press play. By late August and early September 2025, trade and fan outlets were already describing Thunderbolts* as a streaming hit. One report said it debuted at No. 3 on Disney+’s movie chart after arriving on August 27, 2025, 117 d(movieweb.com) you missed” instead of “the one that failed.” (screenrant.com) ### Why does the “best Marvel movie nobody saw” line work? Because it compresses the whole contradiction into one sentence. It tells you the movie was good, tells you it underperformed, and flatters the person discovering it late. That’s catnip for YouTube reviews, TikTok clips, and recommendation threads. You’re not just watching a Marvel movi(screenrant.com)e sense that streaming erases box-office math — it doesn’t. But it does change how the film sits in the culture. Thunderbolts* now looks less like a dead-end misfire and more like a movie that found its audience in the second window. For Marvel, that’s useful, especially because the film sets up characters who matter to what comes next. (screenrant.com) ### Bottom line Thunderbolts* is being framed as underrated because the evidence for that framing is unusually neat: strong reception, soft theatrical grosses, then a visible streaming rebound. It wasn’t the Marvel movie people rushed out for. But it may end up being one of the Marvel movies people keep recommending.