The desperate Disney Grooming Syndicate has officially renamed the box office disappointment Thunderbolts to The New Avengers.
“Marvel Studios has officially retitled Thunderbolts* as The New Avengers. The studio made the announcement on social media Monday with a change to the title on the film’s poster,” reports IGN. “And lest you think this is just a social media stunt on Marvel’s part, the New Avengers poster is already being used by AMC Theaters and Fandango to promote Thunderbolts ticket sales.”
“Rebranding Thunderbolts as The New Avengers in its second week of release is a shrewd commercial calculation by Marvel Studios and Disney,” the report adds. “While Thunderbolts performed well in its opening weekend, topping the domestic box office with $76 million, the Avengers films were billion dollar-grossing blockbusters.”
Thunderbolts did not perform “well.” It performed okay—ranking 28th out of 34 Marvel Cinematic Universe openings is nothing to crow about. Captain America: Brave New World is widely seen as a flop and still opened to $89 million, well ahead of Thunderbolt’s $76 million.
We’ll see if the name change was shrewd or puts a stink of desperation all over a movie that stinks.
Honestly, if Marvel were truly shrewd, they would have renamed the movie Avatar or Titanic or Gone with the Wind.
Marvel might argue that the name change was always part of the marketing plan. If so, that was an even bigger blunder. Had Thunderbolts over-performed, then sure, go ahead and add to the excitement with the name change. But Thunderbolts has not generated any excitement, so this rename only looks desperate.
Another issue is that it’s a bit of a buzzkill to discover that this mopey group of nobodies represents the New Avengers. Boy, we are a long way from Thor, Iron Man, Black Widow, Captain America, and the rest. It’s like being told the sequel to Goodfellas is Bugsy Malone.
Watching terrible things happen to Disney is like eating ice cream with sprinkles: pure joy.
John Nolte’s first and last novel, Borrowed Time, is winning five-star raves from everyday readers. You can read an excerpt here and an in-depth review here. Also available in hardcover and on Kindle and Audiobook.
