You know, I believe they have lost our generation (I have a year on you) and that's a large part of the box-office drop. My friends are old time hard core comic readers and we have a long list of complaints about the MCU and none of us were interested in this version of the Thunderbolts.

I have to point out that in the original Infinity War comics from the early 1990s (before the kiddie crap they created for the MCU), Thanos would have had Sentry for lunch, not even breaking a sweat. In the comic, Thanos bested the Cosmic Brigade, including Galactus, Death, Eternity, The Stranger, Love and Hate, Chaos and Order, a Sentinel and a few others I can't . Thanos had no army. No children. One lackey in the bootlicker Mephisto. That's it. Endgame remains relative crap to me, the original story is untouchable, the movie is little more than a series of scenes, didn't even have the original hero of the story, Warlock. Bleahhh.

So Sentry beat Thanos with the Gauntlet? Don't make me laugh.

And the idea that the MCU Thanos is akin to the comics, only in the recently written trash. MCU Thanos is an absolute wimp in comparison to the original Gauntlet wearer.

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As for the current mess. In the comics, Sentry has been beaten by Hulk (World War Hulk), Thor (Siege), and...get ready for this list...Absorbing Man (Creel), Emma Frost, Human Torch, X-Man, Solarus, Scout, Morgan LeFay and Dr. Strange (with Clea).

As for Thanos vs Captain Marvel in the comics. Originally (can't help but wonder if the MCU is crapping out because the new stories have no following) Thanos (without the Gauntlet) defeated a combination of The Avengers, The Thing and Captain Marvel (the real one) in the 1970s. They were saved by the emergence of "Him" (now known as Adam Warlock). This battle was the initial confrontation of the Infinity Stones 20 years before it was written and was ed in the incredibly good graphic novel, the Death of Captain Marvel (again, the real one).

I wouldn't take the movies as canon, when they reboot in a couple of years, things will change.

Trying not to be a bubble buster but I spent a few decades as a booker for theaters and a buyer for video stores so I am just saying what I see.

It did not recoup its budget, not even close. You forgot to add in advertising which adds at least 100 million. So the budget is 280 million. The movie has made 271 million as of today but the studio's share is only 135.5 million. So the studio needs 145 million to break even, meaning it has to make another 290 million at the BO. If the budget did balloon to 300 million (I find it likely but could not confirm it) then the movie would shift into bomb status It would need 800 million then for a break even and it will fall far short of that.

A long theatrical run is nearly impossible now. The movie's first three weeks have almost nothing for competition. In 10 days a monster called Mission Impossible will arrive. I looked at the last few years of Marvel movies for comparisons. Right now Thunderbolts is slightly running behind Captain America's gross, It should reasonably sur Black Widow, Shang Chi and the Eternals but that's about all we can be sure of.

The international box office has been mediocre so I don't see any way to recoup there. It generally dies off well before the domestic market does.

Two weekends in and the movie is still far behind Deadpool's first 3 days. I don't see much solid here. It had one of the lowest weekend opening's in Marvel history. Looking at opening weekends in the last 5 years: Black Widow 80 million, Ant-Man 3 106 million, Shang Chi 71 million, The Eternals 71 million, Dr. Strange 2 187 million, Guardians of the Galaxy 3 118 million, Black Panther 2 181 million, Spiderman 260 million, Thor 4 144 million, Deadpool/Wolverine 211 million. That first weekend is a huge indicator for eventual totals. Thunderbolts is clearly in the 400 million area.

Please note I am not discussing the quality of the movie. BO totals do not tell you if the movie is good (which is subjective anyway).

Sorry but the math here doesn't seem to add up. The movie had a 180 million dollar budget, which seems a bit low but we'll go with it. Then you have to add the advertising costs which will run about 100 million to 150 million (at the very least) I would imagine. I will go with the low figure and now we have a cost of 280 million. This means it would require over 560m globally to near break even (note that in general the studio only gets half the box office total, less in the international market due to costs: dubbing, edits, subtitles and exchange rates).

560 million is a pretty generous guess and there is little chance The Thunderbolts will make it.

But profitablity hasn't been limited to the BO for half a century. Merchandising, sales, streaming rights, network TV and more will all chip in. So no doubt it will make money, if not the kind of money they wanted. The big question might be how much shade this throws on the Avengers project. If the FF performs the same way things could get messy.

As an expression of my own tastes, I'll just say..."enough with the C and D level characters already. My rule of thumb has been, if they couldn't carry their own comic, I'll , managed to completely avoid The Marvels and The Eternals that way.".