After a $117.6 million domestic start and promising word of mouth from its opening weekend, it looked like “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” could at least be a step in the right direction for Marvel Studios after two years of inconsistent box office returns. Its second weekend poured a bucket of cold water on that hope.
Despite an A- on CinemaScore and a 92% Rotten Tomatoes audience score, “Fantastic Four” cratered with a 66% second weekend drop to $40 million domestic and $79 million worldwide. The other comparable superhero film, “Superman,” saw a 53% drop in its second weekend.
The retrofuturistic spin on Marvel’s “first family” has largely failed to make the leap from hardcore fans to a wider audience despite that buzz from the former, resulting in a hold that was only two percentage points better than the 68% drop of the tepidly received “Captain America: Brave New World” earlier this year and the critically lambasted 2015 “Fantastic Four” film, which also dropped 68% from its poor $25 million opening.
The downward trend continued on Monday with a daily domestic total of $4.5 million, a 56% drop from the $10.4 million it earned on its first Monday.
That “First Steps” suffered such a second-weekend collapse despite all the critical and commercial momentum bodes poorly not just for the film, but for the Marvel universe’s long-term future. At best, the drop-off underscores the challenges Disney faces in expanding the roster of superhero characters beyond already established franchises 17 years into Marvel Studios’ existence. At worst, this could signal that general audiences just aren’t that into the MCU anymore.
Even with the underwhelming overseas numbers that have plagued fellow superhero film “Superman” and were clearly at play again with “Fantastic Four” this opening weekend, exhibitor sources told TheWrap heading into the weekend that they believed the film would keep its domestic hold below 60%.
That would have kept it well on pace to clear $300 million domestic and $500 million worldwide. Now, those benchmarks are in question if repeat viewings from hardcore fans and interest from general audiences stay low this weekend with Disney’s “Freakier Friday” and Warner Bros./New Line’s “Weapons” hitting theaters.
It’s a scenario that Comscore analyst Paul Dergarabedian was not expecting.
“The whole recipe was there for what I thought would be a strong second week hold, and instead it ended up holding not much better than ‘Captain America: Brave New World,’” he said. “It’s a real surprise to me because I can’t point to the marketing being bad or the audience not liking it.”
When being good isn’t good enough
In the past, with well-received disappointments like “Elio” and “Transformers One,” sometimes the elements of a film that opening weekend viewers find most enjoyable don’t appeal to wider audiences. That may be the case here with “Fantastic Four: First Steps.”
Film critic Aaron Neuwirth compared the buzz around “First Steps” to that of “Superman,” saying that while “First Steps” pleased most longtime Marvel fans with what is widely considered to be the best cinematic interpretation of Reed, Sue, Johnny and Ben, the film “lacked an ‘X’ factor” that the DC reboot film had.
‘”Superman’ had a lot of things people enjoyed that they weren’t necessarily expecting. For weeks, people have been talking about Krypto, Mr. Terrific and the Justice Gang, etc. ‘Fantastic Four,’ which I did like, didn’t have that by comparison,” he said.
“It came as advertised, giving audiences exactly what they were expecting. Sure, it looked good and had fun elements, but there were no surprises, no characters that truly broke out, no wild connection to the rest of the MCU — not that it needed one — or some shocking cameo,” he said. “There wasn’t anything specific that made people go, ‘Oh, you have to go see this film right this second!”
For another James Gunn comparison, look to his “Guardians of the Galaxy,” the film that proved just how much clout Marvel had with audiences by turning some of the most obscure characters of the comic canon into cultural icons. Much of the buzz around the film coalesced around specific scenes and actors, such as Dave Bautista, then known mostly for his WWE work, turning in a surprisingly funny performance as Drax.
The MCU has been devalued
The decline in audience goodwill towards the Marvel Cinematic Universe first took root with the tepid audience reception to the box office hit “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” in 2022 and began to snowball with the financial and critical disappointment of “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” the following year.
But until now, the box office misfires for the franchise could be attributed to either poor word-of-mouth, as was the case for “Brave New World,” or the sentiment that a well-received film would require “homework” — watching a bunch of past films and/or Disney+ streaming series — to understand, as was the case this past May for “Thunderbolts*,” which starred characters from TV shows like U.S. Agent and Valentina Allegra de Fontaine.
“Fantastic Four: First Steps,” a truly homework-free Marvel film, was supposed to answer all those criticisms. But if all of that still isn’t enough to give Marvel’s first superhero team a box office run exceeding the best of the “Ant-Man” films — “Ant-Man and the Wasp” made $623 million in 2018 — that is a bad omen for the franchise’s ability to launch new heroes like Shang-Chi, whose debut film became the first post-COVID shutdown film in 2021 to pass $200 million.
During Marvel’s 2010s “Infinity Saga” heyday, mass audiences were so engaged with the overarching storyline that they showed up even for films that might be classified as well received but lacking in that “X” factor, as Neuwirth put it. Think of films like “Doctor Strange,” which built up to “Avengers: Infinity War” but lacked the dry humor that Benedict Cumberbatch and Benedict Wong would bring to their characters in future appearances.
Or “Captain Marvel,” which grossed over $1 billion as the lead-in to “Avengers: Endgame” in 2019 and was well received at release but didn’t secure any longterm interest in Carol Danvers, leading to its sequel “The Marvels” to become the MCU’s biggest flop four years later.
As TheWrap’s Drew Taylor wrote, the over-saturation and quality inconsistency of Marvel, along with other Disney brands as part of the studio’s push to boost Disney+, has led many moviegoers to decide they’ve had enough. That has been clear with the underperformance of “Thunderbolts*,” but the general audience flight from “Fantastic Four” shows that even strong buzz isn’t enough to get some back in the habit of watching this franchise again, especially as it isn’t clear exactly how the scattered pieces of the MCU will align for next year’s “Avengers: Doomsday” the way there was a neat and orderly buildup to “Infinity War.”
There’s no easy fix to this. Next year’s “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” which will be released by Sony, may be immune from these effects. Like “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” and “Deadpool & Wolverine,” two films that actually did well at the box office recently, “Brand New Day” will have familiar (and, importantly, beloved) characters from the Infinity Saga, including Tom Holland’s popular take on Peter Parker.
Since Tobey Maguire first suited up as Spidey in 2002, the webslinger has proven to be Marvel’s Batman in that he’s a constant box office draw no matter what the state of the surrounding franchise. But it is likely that “Avengers: Doomsday” and “Avengers: Secret Wars” will fall well short of the $2 billion-plus totals of “Infinity War” and “Endgame,” and not just because of China’s near abandonment of the MCU. With the lack of proper buildup for those films, it is hard to say if those films will have anything that gets hardcore and casual fans alike excited for anything that Marvel has planned beyond those movies.
The outlook for “Fantastic Four”
But “Avengers” is more than a year away. This weekend, the outlook for “Fantastic Four: First Steps” doesn’t look good. Fellow Disney release “Freakier Friday” is expected to take No. 1 with a $40 million-plus opening with strong upside while New Line horror film “Weapons” is looking at a $25 million launch in the No. 2 slot.
Alongside this past weekend’s new releases “The Bad Guys 2” and “The Naked Gun” as well as the upcoming “Nobody 2,” August’s releases are all sleeper hit hunters looking to turn out a specific core demographic. It seemed as if “Fantastic Four” could co-exist with those films, and that’s something Disney insiders say they believe is still possible. But if general interest for that four-quadrant title is lower than expected, those movies could become alternatives that pull away the moviegoers Marvel needs to salvage this theatrical run.
“‘Fantastic Four’ was already pretty heavy on fanboys and light on families even on opening weekend,” said one theatrical insider, pointing to an audience share of 15% under the age of 18 and 6% 12 and under. “If families needed convincing to buy a ticket, then having to compete against ‘The Bad Guys 2’ in the second weekend probably ended up being a bigger hurdle than expected.”
Alongside the family friendly “Bad Guys 2,” there’s “Naked Gun” providing comedy, “Weapons” providing a chilling flavor of horror, and “Freakier Friday” expected to draw out millennial women who saw the first “Freaky Friday” back in 2003, possibly with daughters of their own. It’s the sort of variety that is great for theaters and should make for robust late-summer business, but could further depress overall interest in “Fantastic Four.”
With the way Marvel’s slate is currently set up, it probably won’t be until at least 2028, after two more “Avengers” films have tried to get the world excited about the MCU again, until the franchise tries to introduce another new hero. Perhaps those big crossovers and Robert Downey Jr.’s return will be enough to reverse the growing disinterest for all but the most popular of superheroes and get everyone hyped for a new generation of actors to play the X-Men.
But for now, Marvel’s ceiling has been considerably lowered, held up by a decreasing number of people swayed by positive buzz who can mostly be counted among the MCU’s true believers. If that means $400-600 million global totals are going to be the norm, Disney will have to budget accordingly, something that may already be planned as Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige has publicly announced that the number of films and TV shows his studio will release in the years to come will be significantly scaled back.
