Superhero Fatigue Sets In As THE FANTASTIC FOUR Finally Passes $400M And SUPERMAN Crawls, Not Soars, To $600M

It's getting increasingly more difficult to ignore superhero fatigue, as the worldwide box office totals for The Fantastic Four: First Steps and Superman paint a worrying picture. Read on for details...

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By JoshWilding - Aug 10, 2025 12:08 PM EST

Filed Under: Fantastic Four

It might be for the best that we have nearly a year to wait before Supergirl and Spider-Man: Brand New Day arrive in theaters, because superhero fatigue is getting harder to shrug off as wishful thinking from the genre's detractors.

This weekend, The Fantastic Four: First Steps reached $434.2 million at the worldwide box office, with that broken down to $230.4 million domestically and $203.8 million overseas.

That makes it the highest-grossing MCU movie of 2025, easily beating Captain America: Brave New World ($415.3 million) and Thunderbolts* ($382.4 million). It will surpass $450 million next week, but $500 million isn't a safe bet as the movie has had much weaker legs than expected. As a result, revised expectations place it at a final cume of $490 million - $510 million.

Will Disney be happy with that? Well, it's the biggest Fantastic Four movie to date and received glowing reviews from fans and critics alike, so it's not a terrible result. However, with a reported $200 million budget (not including marketing), barely breaking even might not be good enough to ensure Marvel's First Family has their own franchise post-Avengers: Secret Wars.

In the U.S., The Fantastic Four: First Steps faced a 60% drop, grossing $15.5 million and surpassing Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings' entire $224.5 million haul.

What of Superman? Well, that's reached $578.8 million worldwide, making it the year's biggest superhero movie. The DC Studios reboot has been a bigger attraction than Marvel Studios' latest effort, grossing $331.2 million in North America and a so-so $247.6 million internationally, where the Man of Tomorrow simply isn't a draw.

$600 million worldwide is guaranteed, but the movie is soaring there as quickly as expected, and while it could wrap up its run with $620 million - $640 million, it will not top Man of Steel's $670 million gross. Not helping matters is Superman's reported combined production and marketing budget of $350 million, making it $50 million more expensive than The Fantastic Four: First Steps.

This is still a good start for the DCU, but more work needs to be done in the years ahead by James Gunn and Peter Safran if they hope to see their "Chapter 1: Gods and Monsters" plan reach its full potential.

Set against the vibrant backdrop of a 1960s-inspired, retro-futuristic world, Marvel Studios' The Fantastic Four: First Steps introduces Marvel’s First Family—Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic (Pedro Pascal), Sue Storm/Invisible Woman (Vanessa Kirby), Johnny Storm/Human Torch (Joseph Quinn) and Ben Grimm/The Thing (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) as they face their most daunting challenge yet.

Forced to balance their roles as heroes with the strength of their family bond, they must defend Earth from a ravenous space god called Galactus (Ralph Ineson) and his enigmatic Herald, Silver Surfer (Julia Garner). And if Galactus’ plan to devour the entire planet and everyone on it weren’t bad enough, it suddenly gets very personal.

Superman, DC Studios' first feature film to hit the big screen, is soared into theaters worldwide this summer from Warner Bros. Pictures. In his signature style, James Gunn takes on the original superhero in the newly imagined DC universe with a singular blend of epic action, humor and heart, delivering a Superman who’s driven by compassion and an inherent belief in the goodness of humankind. 

The movie stars David Corenswet in the dual role of Superman/Clark Kent, Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane and Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor.

Both The Fantastic Four: First Steps and Superman are now playing in theaters.

SUPERMAN Director James Gunn Hits Back At Claims The Movie Needs To Make $650M To Be Considered A Success

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117 Comments

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HashTagSwagg - 8/10/2025, 12:39 PM

Usernametaken - 8/10/2025, 12:42 PM

Sorry guys, but superhero fatigue seems to be an actual thing. At least outside the US.

incredibleTalk - 8/10/2025, 1:10 PM

@Usernametaken - We are not receiving a single profit from these movies but still going to see them because it's our job as Fanboys...

...we pay our money...

...take our sit and watch the movie...

...and leave the movie entertained!!!

Usernametaken - 8/10/2025, 1:12 PM

@incredibleTalk - I consider myself one of the guys, if that wasn't clear :)

RogerWilco - 8/10/2025, 1:39 PM

@incredibleTalk -

Mongrol - 8/10/2025, 1:42 PM

@incredibleTalk -

If they don’t make money there’ll be nothing to see.

harryba11zack - 8/10/2025, 12:45 PM

epc1122 - 8/10/2025, 1:01 PM

@harryba11zack - false, the production budgets would be extremely high and it wouldn’t make a dent on Netflix streaming or subscription numbers. One of the reasons why rebel moon is pretty much done. Was supposed to be their version of Star Wars and unfortunately failed.

RockReigns - 8/10/2025, 1:11 PM

@harryba11zack - Netflix fired Snyder after both of his Rebel Moon movies flopped. Why would they bring him back to flop all over again?

McMurdo - 8/10/2025, 1:40 PM

@epc1122 - yeah but Rebel Moon was just really bad. If Netflix made actually great DC live action films and shows, subscriptions would go up. But nobody sees that happening.

epc1122 - 8/10/2025, 1:47 PM

@McMurdo - Snyder’s films generally aren’t liked. If he didn’t have the dc ip in the Snyderverse and if the stories were the same but with different characters, I don’t think people would defend the movies as much .

noname - 8/10/2025, 3:49 PM

@epc1122 - exactly. replace all those recognizable characters with unknowns, and the issues with his films become clear. People like Cavill because he looks great as SUPERMAN. Replace SUPERMAN with an unknown character and those same people will be like, "This character sucks."

soberchimera - 8/10/2025, 12:45 PM

Or maybe the initial reviews were hyperbolic and these movies were just decent at best and not amazing as some people were desperately trying to make them out to be?

bobevanz - 8/10/2025, 12:49 PM

@soberchimera - there's always going to be a bias for these movies because the fans show up on opening night. Of course they invest too much time into that aspect and not really understand wtf the general audience wants to see

DocSpock - 8/10/2025, 12:56 PM

@soberchimera -

True. These movies were good, but not even close to great.

McMurdo - 8/10/2025, 1:41 PM

@DocSpock - 8s and 7s. Quick someone start a band and call it 8s and 7s.

OrgasmicPotatoe - 8/10/2025, 1:58 PM

@McMurdo - Close enough !

JFerguson - 8/10/2025, 12:47 PM

The way of the western. Dreaded days like this.

Mawat - 8/10/2025, 2:02 PM

@JFerguson - Bring on the spaghetti superhero films! Then the Anti-Super...oh wait... we already had those.

Canyoublush - 8/10/2025, 3:13 PM

@JFerguson - prophecy fulfilled lol.

bobevanz - 8/10/2025, 12:48 PM

If this means more medium budget movies I'm all for it. This genre set an unhealthy trend inside the industry. Back when Ant-Man 2 could make 800 lol. It turned everything into a check and balance sheet. They figured a 250 million dollar movie making a billion dollars was worth it, now they're seeing the ramifications. This was inevitable, but this doesn't change anything. People want good movies, they don't give a [frick] what the internal multipler and how much was spent on marketing. make more horrors and comedies with modest budgets like The Naked Gun and Weapons, and celebrate your +2x profits.

MyCoolYoung - 8/10/2025, 12:54 PM

@bobevanz - Antman and the wasp made 600 million. I know this because I say that when people say Captain marvel got an infinity war/endgame boost but for some reason Antman didn’t

Typhoon20 - 8/10/2025, 1:35 PM

@bobevanz - When did AntMan make 800 m lol, stop making stuff up. It never even made 600m.

McMurdo - 8/10/2025, 1:42 PM

@bobevanz - I champion giving folks like Cregger the ability to bring their visions to fruition on film. The more of that the better.

McMurdo - 8/10/2025, 1:46 PM

@MyCoolYoung - that was back when Brie Larson was kinda coming off the Room Oscar hype (and she was great in that film) and girls were hyped to have a Avenger they might more relate to (then reality set in and her character was written more as a tool for the team rather than a fully fledged well drawn 3d character, and i dont mean tool in the derogatory sense but in the literal).

SuperiorHeckler - 8/10/2025, 3:45 PM

@bobevanz - Yeah. I suppose in an alternate universe the ANTMAN sequel made $800 million but not in THIS universe. 🫤

ANTMAN and THE WASP
DOMESTIC (34.8%)
$216,648,740
INTERNATIONAL (65.2%)
$406,025,399
WORLDWIDE
$622,674,139

vectorsigma - 8/10/2025, 12:49 PM

Whatever side you are on in this, Ne Zha 2 will be a good change of pace. Watch it in the biggest screen possible

bobevanz - 8/10/2025, 12:51 PM

@vectorsigma - you're just as bad as the Marvel stans and Snyder shills

F4ntasticClunge - 8/10/2025, 12:51 PM

@vectorsigma - it came and went in the UK back in April. If it comes back to cinemas I will defo go see it.

vectorsigma - 8/10/2025, 12:56 PM

@bobevanz - lolz man. Id rather geek out on a quality film with much effort put into it than whatever slop marvel or snyder is doing

vectorsigma - 8/10/2025, 12:58 PM

@F4ntasticClunge - not sure for other countries atm. Even here in my country, still hoping to get it.

Thing94 - 8/10/2025, 12:50 PM

Just keep going, get to that 45 days plus, in theaters

incredibleTalk - 8/10/2025, 1:38 PM

@Thing94 - I feel like FF4 should have come out during the Christmas season because it gave off some

Nativity Vibes!

AllsGood - 8/10/2025, 12:50 PM

All Hopes will be On Marvel Studios Spider-Man: Brand New Day to a Huge Box Office 1 Billion Plus Hit.

To Save the Comic Book Movie Industry.

TheLobster - 8/10/2025, 3:45 PM

@AllsGood - constantly moving the goal post lmao

Malatrova15 - 8/10/2025, 12:50 PM

The west has fallen

TheJok3r - 8/10/2025, 12:51 PM

I don't think it's superhero fatigue, but rather mediocrity fatigue. Both Marvel and DC have flooded the market with (to put it nicely) shit content over the past half decade, so it's not surprising that people have simply given up on the genre. Superman and F4 are steps in the right direction, but it's going to take more than just two movies to reverse half a decade worth of damage.

Canyoublush - 8/10/2025, 2:30 PM

@TheJok3r - Has anyone stopped to consider it might also be cinema fatigue? I don’t know where y’all live but here in the U.K. tickets are bloody expensive. Sure most people who visit the pictures regularly have memberships but even still you are talking at least 20 quid. It’s ridiculous. If you have families that’s like 50 quid a trip. I think cinema is a dying industry. Ever since Covid streaming services have become the norm. Why flock to the theatres when you can watch the latest movie on your phone or tablet. Such convenience is a huge incentive and piracy will always be a thing.

I think people only flock to see the big extravaganzas such as avatar, Star Wars or a novelty flick like Barbie which to my surprise grossed a billion. Animation is still very lucrative and game-based movies such as Minecraft seem to be a growing niche now. As for superheroes remember since the year 2000 they have been a dime a dozen. Every year since that year the cinemas have seen at least one marvel production. Now in 2025 social media is more thrilling and appealing than grabbing a bucket of popcorn and visiting your local theatre. Case in point I see more people on their phones in a screen as opposed to watching the damn film.

TheJok3r - 8/10/2025, 2:52 PM

@Canyoublush -

"Has anyone stopped to consider it might also be cinema fatigue? Here in the U.K. tickets are bloody expensive."

Ticket and food & drink prices are indeed a major turn off for people, especially families who could do anything else for a fraction of the cost. Movie theaters are basically a snake eating its own tail. They lose customers, raise prices on the ones they have left, lose more customers, raise prices again, and so on.

"Ever since Covid streaming services have become the norm."

This is another good one. Before streaming services, the traditional theatrical window was 90 days, but now its been reduced to 45 days. Unless it's an event movie or a story-heavy movie that can be spoiled for you, it makes more financial sense to wait for streaming.

Another reason that's not mentioned often is the actual moviegoers themselves. Why would I spend all that money and take time out of my day to watch a movie with people who can't shut up, get off their phone, and sit still for 10 minutes. Spider-Man 4 and Batman 2 are the only movies I plan seeing in theaters over the next two years as a result of this. People have simply ruined the movie going experience.

Apophis71 - 8/10/2025, 3:02 PM

@TheJok3r - Last truly great movie I saw on a big screen was totaly ruined by idiots on phones etc, all the most emotional and important parts of the narrative (ie when it wasn't fast paced loud action) you couldn't help be distracted by kids with their brightly lit up rectangles in their hands, along with bleeps and ringtones from them. It was still an OK watch in the cinema but was FAR more rewarding watching a second time at home without all of that which was why it's sequel we were fine waiting to stream it, we knew the entire story anyway from the book so spoilers was never a problem for it.

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Superhero Fatigue Sets In As THE FANTASTIC FOUR Finally Passes $400M And SUPERMAN Crawls, Not Soars, To $600M

It's getting increasingly more difficult to ignore superhero fatigue, as the worldwide box office totals for The Fantastic Four: First Steps and Superman paint a worrying picture. Read on for details...

SUPERMAN Director James Gunn Hits Back At Claims The Movie Needs To Make $650M To Be Considered A Success

THE FANTASTIC FOUR Writer On Why The Human Torch Didn't Say "Flame On" And The Ultimate Nullifier's Absence

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