Marvel "Thrilled" With Response To THE FANTASTIC FOUR; X-MEN Unlikely To Feature A-List Talent To Cut Costs

Marvel Studios is reportedly thrilled with how The Fantastic Four: First Steps has been received both critically and commercially, but in response to the new box office landscape, X-Men is cutting costs.

News

By JoshWilding - Jul 30, 2025 01:07 PM EST

Filed Under: Fantastic Four

Source: Variety

Despite featuring a relatively unknown character, Captain Marvel was released in 2019 and made over $1 billion at the worldwide box office. It was a good movie, but just having "Marvel" in its title was likely enough to help it break box office records.

The landscape has since changed, and superhero movies are no longer easily surpassing $1 billion in ticket sales. That's evident from relatively muted openings for Superman and The Fantastic Four: First Steps.

According to Variety, Marvel Studios is "thrilled" with the reboot's $218 million opening weekend, and that it's managed to bring Marvel's First Family back to the big screen. The movie has earned positive reviews from fans and critics alike after three 20th Century Fox duds just about killed the franchise.

Showing how much things have changed is The Fantastic Four: First Steps' $4.5 million haul in China this past weekend (Superman made $6.5 million). In 2019, Avengers: Endgame earned $614 million in the Middle Kingdom alone.

"There’s a reset of what a hit is, and I don’t see them consistently hitting $1 billion as before — without China, with Disney+ exposure, post-COVID, without megastars," one top agent who represents several MCU clients tells the trade. "China used Marvel, Disney and the U.S. film industry to seed their own." Another insider adds, "We are never going to have those days again."

The Fantastic Four: First Steps' cast kept its budget at a manageable $200 million, and it's said that the movie only ran into one hurdle: a battle over screenwriting credits. Ultimately, the WGA stepped in to award final screenwriting credit to Josh Friedman, Eric Pearson, Jeff Kaplan, Ian Springer, and Kat Wood.

Addressing the new box office norm, analyst Shawn Robbins explained, "I think as an industry we’ve become very obsessed with opening-weekend results, in particular with both ['Superman' and 'Fantastic Four']. Because word of mouth is so strong for both, I think the story is not fully obvious yet."

"Yes, 'Fantastic Four' is good enough in terms of it exceeded what Disney expected. So that’s a positive. And it’s tough to compare it to any other Marvel films because we simply live in a different time now for the superhero releases."

Things are changing at Marvel Studios to address this different status quo, and that extends to the upcoming X-Men reboot from Thunderbolts* filmmaker Jake Schreier. The studio is "fine-tuning" Michael Lesslie's script, and while casting will begin soon, Marvel has indicated to reps that it's looking for talent rather than A-Listers to "keep the cost down."

X-Men is not the mystery movie scheduled for July 23, 2027, and neither is Blade or another Deadpool, as the "Marvel brain trust is feeling no sense of urgency on the long-gestating" projects. However, Ryan Coogler's Black Panther 3 is "creating excitement internally."

The Fantastic Four: First Steps is now playing in theaters.

FANTASTIC FOUR Star Ioan Gruffudd On Why A Third Movie Didn't Happen, Cut Wolverine Scene, And MCU Return

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THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS Has Mighty $14.2M Tuesday Ahead Of Solid $45M - $52M Second Weekend

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67 Comments

1 2

SummersEssex - 7/30/2025, 1:52 PM

I would love to have new talent in the X-Men. As long as it performs and they don’t go for baby X-Men

Apophis71 - 7/30/2025, 2:24 PM

@SummersEssex - How young would be too young for you out of curiosity?

It is never fully confirmed but when the team was first created and appeared in the comics the rough ages were...

Cyclops 18

Jean 18

Angel 18

Beast 19

Iceman 17

I'd prefer is having those five they were out of training with a few years in the field thus early to mid twenties works better then add in some younger additions. What I don't want is a core five who still seem immature or them looking like they are in their 30's or older ultimately.

CorndogBurglar - 7/30/2025, 2:48 PM

@Apophis71 - Personally I would want them in their late 20's.

We just got done with 4 X-Men movies with teenagers/early 20's.

Apophis71 - 7/30/2025, 3:05 PM

@CorndogBurglar - I'd be cool with late 20's too, the issue with teen/early 20's Fox films however wasn't realy down to the ages of those characters. First Class I liked and the biggest issue if there was one that it couldn't use the original team due to the established timeline and DoFP was generaly great even if could have done without the 'mutant cure' bit in it but after that...

...totaly get anyone nervous of them going younger than a pref cut off point, it can easily go wrong doing so even if it need not be so with great writing/casting/direction.

Nonameforme - 7/30/2025, 1:53 PM

So thrilled they're hiring unknowns and slashing budgets.

YouIknowiamsexy - 7/31/2025, 8:17 AM

@Nonameforme - Bruh the spin is insane! Ain't no way they are happy with F4 numbers!!

CreateNowSlpL8r - 7/30/2025, 1:56 PM

"The Fantastic Four: First Steps' cast kept its budget at a manageable $200 million"

Come on now. Opening budget maybe. I don't know how many times we have to go through this.

Oberlin4Prez - 7/30/2025, 1:59 PM

@CreateNowSlpL8r - over inflated budgets only matter when it's NOT Marvel. Everyone knows that.

Clintthahamster - 7/30/2025, 2:35 PM

@CreateNowSlpL8r - That's what people mean when they say "budget." The budget reported in trades has always been the initial production budget.

JDL - 7/30/2025, 4:22 PM

@CreateNowSlpL8r - Remember Covid raised costs about $20-$25M of a budget thart comes in in the $200M range.

Oberlin4Prez - 7/30/2025, 1:58 PM

In other words, "We spent too long placating to China and when they found their out with COVID we realized too late that those days were long gone".

Gee who could have predicted that China would use the US to bolster itself?

SonOfAGif - 7/30/2025, 11:17 PM

@Oberlin4Prez - Didn't Spider-Man No Way Home accrue $1 Billion at the box office without China?

Oberlin4Prez - 7/31/2025, 12:32 AM

@SonOfAGif - close to 2 billion actually. But what's your point? No way home was 2 years ago. China used to be so intertwined that we were getting billion dollar movies left and right. That's the point.

SonOfAGif - 7/31/2025, 12:47 AM

@Oberlin4Prez - My point was it was done without China. It's possible to reach $1 billion without China.

Oberlin4Prez - 7/31/2025, 1:46 AM

@SonOfAGif - right. It's possible, but less likely. And look, I'm not saying Hollywood should be dependent on china. I think they fooled themselves into thinking they were a forever cash cow, but you can't argue with the results they had while it lasted.

Matchesz - 7/30/2025, 1:58 PM

“China used Marvel, Disney and the U.S. film industry to seed their own.”

😂

EskimoJ - 7/30/2025, 2:07 PM

@Matchesz - Hooray for China? 🤨

TheVisionary25 - 7/30/2025, 1:59 PM

“𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐯𝐞𝐥 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐭'𝐬 𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐀-𝐋𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐭𝐨 "𝐤𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐧."

I would hope ( and it has seemed like) Marvel has been doing that for a long while now and that some of the talent they have found just happened to be A-listers but that’s just me.

Anyway with China now focusing moreso on its own film industry and post Co-vid watching habits , I think it’s gonna be rare to see a film hit 1 billion atleast for awhile..

Hell , the only movie (besides China’s Ne Zha 2 ) to make 1 billion & over this year so far has been Lilo & Stitch with only a few candidates in Wicked: For Good , Zootopia 2 and Avatar:Fire & Ash being the other films that possible could achieve that but we’ll see.

EskimoJ - 7/30/2025, 2:02 PM

@TheVisionary25 - 😆 There were folks calling them desperate for actually casting A-listers who will now criticize them for actively refraining from it.

TheVisionary25 - 7/30/2025, 2:03 PM

@EskimoJ - oh definitely lol…

People are fickle.

clogan - 7/30/2025, 2:21 PM

@TheVisionary25 - This is something Feige is complicit in nowadays. When the MCU started, they were trying to bring relative unknowns up to stars.

More of that is done, better.

TheVisionary25 - 7/30/2025, 2:25 PM

@clogan - I get that

However the implication to me was that they are now looking for talent then A-listers which makes it seem they aren’t talented lol…

Overall I think they have always been looking for talent and that some of them just happened to be very well known already

RolandD - 7/30/2025, 9:20 PM

@TheVisionary25 @EskimoJ - Fickle? You mean like the story with Ioan Gruffudd where most of the comments have people praising the Tim Story films over First Strps when people used to regularly trash them, not to the point of Fant4stic but you know what I mean. Those films are not all bad. I mean I rewatched them in prep for First Steps but still.

EskimoJ - 7/30/2025, 2:00 PM

Let me guess: Marvel Studios is lying about being thrilled with their movie's box office, but WB/DC & Co. are genuinely happy with Superman's... though they're both running similar numbers.

MaxPaint - 7/30/2025, 2:35 PM

@EskimoJ - Exactly.

ObserverIO - 7/30/2025, 4:29 PM

@EskimoJ - The excuse that movies don't do that well these days is valid. We do only have a small number of big movies per year nowadays.

But at least one of those big hits was always (until this year) a cbm.

So with lowered expectations that may be happy. ish. maybe.
But there is no way they're thrilled to realise that their brand is no longer the big seller that it always was.

The excuse itself is a sad and disappointing fact.

ObserverIO - 7/30/2025, 4:30 PM

So basically any way you cut it the numbers for these movies (both Superman and Fantastic Four) are disappointing.

JacobsLadder - 7/30/2025, 8:13 PM

@EskimoJ - both will lose a shit ton of $$$

MCUKnight11 - 7/30/2025, 2:04 PM

Here's hoping for Cyclops, we get the same magic we got with Chris Evans as Steve Rogers.

TheVisionary25 - 7/30/2025, 2:10 PM

@MCUKnight11 - same , that’s pretty much my biggest hope in regards to the MCU’s X-Men.

I need Cyclops to shine & be front and center like the comics and X-Men 97 have shown.

RolandD - 7/30/2025, 9:24 PM

@MCUKnight11 - That’s a high bar but I hope so. I think he was probably the best cast actor in the entire MCU, even if he wasn’t a scene chewer like RDJ, who was always fun to watch.

mastakilla39 - 7/30/2025, 2:04 PM

X-men should be all unknown actors similar to the original 2000 film when it 1st came out. Only known stars during that time were Ian Mckellen and Patrick Stewart, everyone else was relatively fresh faces or upcoming. Similar to Batman, Spiderman, or James Bond these franchises will make "stars" and don't need them.

Clintthahamster - 7/30/2025, 2:40 PM

@mastakilla39 - I mean, Halle Berry was arguably as big a name as McKellen or Stewart around that time, and Anna Paquin had already won an Oscar. None were A-listers, but they weren't exactly unknown.

mastakilla39 - 7/30/2025, 2:49 PM

@Clintthahamster - I don't recall Halle Berry really being a star until Monster Ball and Die Another Day (james bond film) came out but those films were after Xmen 1. Similar to Sydney Sweeney right now, she was a hot and sexy upcoming actress with talent but she wasn't a "star" yet in my opinion.

Apophis71 - 7/30/2025, 3:27 PM

@mastakilla39 - She was a rising star for the decade prior to Xmen but wouldn't have called her a big one either till after that. A site like this would have probably listed her as 'star of The Flinstone's' when cast as Storm, that should say enough :D

A note, I'm not saying she didn't have great roles prior as uncertain on that one way or another, just the average person may not know her outside of a few not great films until she got a role in Xmen. Whereas Stewart had the well known TNG series and films amongst other stuff folk may recall him from like Dune over his 36yr pre Fox TV ad film career.

McKellen was always more a shakespearean stage actor who would pop up here and there in TV and film for over 30yrs thus WAS a name, his biggest roles tending to be Shakespeare adaptions and other 'classics' like David Copperfield or serious dramas like Scandal, unsure I'd call him a BIG mainstream name in film pre Xmen.

KennKathleen - 7/30/2025, 4:18 PM

@mastakilla39 - "X-MEN Unlikely To Feature A-List Talent To Cut Costs"

PS: You forgot to mention another group:

Clintthahamster - 7/30/2025, 4:27 PM

@Apophis71 @mastakilla39 - I'm probably not the best person to judge. I saw EVERY MOVIE back then, so the only name from the main cast that I didn't know was that Hugh Jackman fellow. I also so Bulworth in the theater like four times for some reason, so my estimation of Berry's stardom might have been a little skewed.

Apophis71 - 7/30/2025, 6:05 PM

@Clintthahamster - And I'm British so likely saw McKellen and Steward a lot more on UK TV than most Americans and have less clue if any were big on US TV as most stuff never made it across the pond before digital and streaming over the past couple decades :D

Up until early 90's the list of films I hadn't seen was likely a lot shorter than the ones I had, 3 TV channels only (oft with hit and miss reception) meant during my Uni years I basicaly rented VHS tapes of everything the nearest two stores had in stock of films over the prior couple decades or more, lol. After that what with work and kids etc it became a lot more hit and miss, certainly by the time it got to 2000 onwards.

That said I always have had a tendancy not to remember names easily so some true character actors I could watch in a dozen films and not realise it was the same person until they did some that REALY stood out and spoke to me in a way I'd actively look for their name in other films whilst the more one not ones (even if great at what they did) who were basicaly always slight variations of the same thing were the names that stuck more readily, lmao.

Clintthahamster - 7/30/2025, 6:33 PM

@Apophis71 - Yeah, I knew Stewart from ST:TNG (I was the type of nerd who recorded the pilot on VHS, trimming out the ads as best I could for maximum rewatchability) and McKellan from Gods & Monsters and An Apt Pupil, both of which I saw in the theater (I saw at least two movies a week back then, when matinees were still $3, and there was a $1 theater showing second run films.) I knew Marsden from Disturbing Behavior, Janssen from Goldeneye, Paquin from the Piano, and Rebecca Romijn from the Victoria's Secret catalog. 🫣

Apophis71 - 7/30/2025, 7:21 PM

@Clintthahamster - Gods & Monsters, Goldeneye and the Piano I'd all seen from those, dunno about An Apt Pupil, rings a bell but can't put my finger one it, Disturbing Behavior and Victoria's Secret catalog I hadn't.

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Marvel "Thrilled" With Response To THE FANTASTIC FOUR; X-MEN Unlikely To Feature A-List Talent To Cut Costs

Marvel Studios is reportedly thrilled with how The Fantastic Four: First Steps has been received both critically and commercially, but in response to the new box office landscape, X-Men is cutting costs.

FANTASTIC FOUR Star Ioan Gruffudd On Why A Third Movie Didn't Happen, Cut Wolverine Scene, And MCU Return

THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS Has Mighty $14.2M Tuesday Ahead Of Solid $45M - $52M Second Weekend

DISCLAIMER: As a user generated site and platform, ComicBookMovie.com is protected under the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) and "Safe Harbor" provisions.

FANTASTIC FOUR Star Ioan Gruffudd On Why A Third Movie Didn't Happen, Cut Wolverine Scene, And MCU Return