Marvel’s Thunderbolts* tops US box office with $76m opening

Antihero reject movie starring Florence Pugh and Sebastian Stan a great reset' as Alec Baldwin's Rust falls flat

Marvel Studios' Thunderbolts* opened with $76m in domestic ticket sales, according to studio estimates on Sunday, kicking off the summer box office with a solid No 1 debut that fell shy of Marvel's more spectacular launches.

All eyes had been on whether Thunderbolts* - a team-up of antihero rejects similar to Avengers - could restore the Walt Disney Company superhero factory to the kind of box office performance the studio once enjoyed so regularly. The results - similar to the debuts of Eternals ($71m) and Ant-Man and the Wasp ($75m) - suggested Marvel's malaise won't be so easy to snap out of.