Two weeks ago, the New York Times put an asterisk on the success of “Sinners;” this week, it’s in the “Thunderbolts*” title. Maybe one should be on every Marvel movie; there’s always extenuating factors before we can declare MCU box office a hit or a flop.

“Thunderbolts*” made $75 million domestic and $86.2 million internationally for a global haul of $161.2 million. With a $180 million production budget before marketing, that start is fine.

On its face, the domestic opening is lower than this year’s “Captain America: Brave New World” ($89 million), well below “Deadpool & Wolverine” ($211 million), and even below the much-maligned “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” ($106 million). The last MCU film to open (much) lower was “The Marvels” ($46 million), the MCU’s biggest bomb to date.

But with the exception of “Deadpool & Wolverine,” “Thunderbolts*” has a solid chance to outperform all of those films.

Disney said with $86 million internationally,...