Kevin Feige Opens Up About Why ‘Thunderbolts*’ Flopped at the Box Office

Marvel’s Thunderbolts* struggled at the box office despite good reviews, and MCU boss Kevin Feige has shared some thoughts on why that happened.

Thunderbolts*, directed by Jake Schreier and featuring a big cast including Florence Pugh and Sebastian Stan, came out in 2025 as the 36th movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The story follows a group of antiheroes forced to work together on a dangerous mission. Critics liked the movie, with Rotten Tomatoes showing 88% positive reviews and audiences giving it high marks too.

But the film only made around $382 million worldwide, which is low for an MCU movie. Variety reported that Thunderbolts needed to earn $425 million just to break even, making its financial result a big disappointment.

Kevin Feige recently spoke to journalists about why the movie didn’t do as well as expected. He pointed to the huge amount of Marvel content released in recent years, especially on Disney+.

Feige said the studio was trying to handle way too many characters and stories all at once. “We always had more characters than we could possibly make because we weren’t going to make a movie a month. Suddenly, there’s a mandate to make more,” he explained.

This overload of movies and TV shows left audiences feeling overwhelmed. Some viewers struggled to keep up and didn’t feel they could fully enjoy films like Thunderbolts* without watching all the related shows first. Feige admitted that this caused some of the recent Marvel projects to underperform. “Some audiences were still feeling that notion of, ‘I guess I had to have seen these other shows to understand who this is,’” he said.

Because of this, Marvel is now slowing down. The studio plans to release no more than three movies a year and will cut back on live-action TV shows.

Feige said they want to let shows stand on their own without forcing fans to watch everything. He shared this about Thunderbolts and its connection to other Marvel projects: “We’re returning to allowing a TV show to just be a TV show.” For example, even though Thunderbolts* ended with a big event in New York, it won’t affect the Daredevil: Born Again series, which is set in the same city.

On a brighter note, Feige is excited about the upcoming Fantastic Four movie. He praised its retro-future style and said it’s designed to be easy to jump into, even for people who don’t follow every Marvel film or show. “It is a no-homework-required movie. It literally is not connected to anything we’ve made before,” Feige said. This approach hopes to bring in new fans without confusing them.

So, while Thunderbolts* didn’t hit the mark financially, Marvel is listening to fans and planning to make future stories easier to enjoy without needing to watch everything. Feige’s honest take shows the studio is ready to adjust and find the right balance moving forward.

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