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Media|‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’ Breaks a Box Office Curse
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/27/business/media/the-fantastic-four-first-steps-box-office.html
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The movie, the fifth effort to adapt the comic characters for the big screen, was expected to collect about $220 million worldwide in its first weekend.
July 27, 2025, 5:00 a.m. ET
Marvel Studios took a step toward regaining its reputation as Hollywood’s most reliable hitmaker over the weekend.
“The Fantastic Four: First Steps” was expected to collect about $120 million at theaters in the United States and Canada from Thursday through Sunday, box office analysts estimated. Based on advance ticket sales and surveys that track moviegoer interest, Hollywood had expected “First Steps” to arrive at about $115 million in domestic ticket sales.
The movie, which cost at least $300 million to make and market worldwide, was on pace to generate an additional $100 million overseas, for a global opening total of roughly $220 million. Reviews were generally strong.
It was Marvel’s first original breakout hit in six years. (The film is not a sequel. The characters were adapted from Fantastic Four comics, first published in 1961.) Marvel had previously tried to strike gold with movies like “Eternals,” which fizzled in 2021, and “Thunderbolts*,” which was released in May and has taken in $382 million, the lowest total in Marvel’s 17-year, 37-film history when adjusted for inflation.
Marvel’s sequels have also been hit and miss, contributing to fears of “superhero fatigue” in Hollywood. In some ways, Marvel’s runaway success in the 2010s made it arrogant; the studio’s storytelling became tortuously complicated, weaving together plots from numerous TV shows and movies and prompting some casual moviegoers to decide that Marvel cared only about comic nerds.
Disney, which owns Marvel, pushed hard on a “First Steps” marketing message in the weeks leading up to the film’s release: You do not need a Ph.D. in Marvelology to understand this one.
