THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS Suffers Even Bigger Second Weekend Drop Than Estimated With $38.7 Million

THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS Suffers Even Bigger Second Weekend Drop Than Estimated With $38.7 Million

The weekend box office updates are in, and Marvel Studios' The Fantastic Four: First Steps was hit with an even bigger drop than estimates had indicated...

By MarkCassidy - Aug 04, 2025 04:08 PM EST
Filed Under: Fantastic Four

The latest box office numbers are in, and The Fantastic Four: First Steps suffered a steeper-than-estimated drop domestically after its second weekend in theaters.

Marvel Studios' reboot was expected to take in at least $40 million over the weekend, but only ended up making $38.7M (marking a 67% drop). The movie should hit $200 million later tonight, and is currently sitting at around $367 million worldwide on a reported production budget of $200 million.

There's been quite a bit of doomsaying (no pun intended) about these figures, but it is worth keeping in mind that First Steps is still performing better than both Captain America: Brave New World and Thunderbolts* (it's actually already passed the latter's entire domestic cume) overall.

Some of the negativity likely stems from the perception that The Fantastic Four was always viewed as Marvel's biggest movie of the year, and was released to compete directly with DC Studios' Superman. Regardless, we can't imagine the studio is exactly ecstatic about these numbers.

Whether you happen to subscribe to the notion of "superhero fatigue" or not, it's clear that monster $1 billion hits like Deadpool and Wolverine have now become the exception rather than the norm.

First Steps stars Pedro Pascal (The Last of Us, The Mandalorian) as Reed Richards, aka Mr. Fantastic, Vanessa Kirby (Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning) as Sue Storm, aka the Invisible Woman, Joseph Quinn (Stranger Things, A Quiet Place Day One) as Johnny Storm, aka The Human Torch, Ebon Moss-Bachrach (The Punisher, The Bear) as Ben Grimm, aka the Thing, and Julia Garner (Wolf Man, Ozark) as the Silver Surfer.

Ralph Ineson plays Galactus, and Natasha Lyonne and Paul Walter Hauser are also on board in undisclosed roles. John Malkovich's Red Ghost has been cut from the movie.

"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."

The Fantastic Four: First Steps is now in theaters.

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BaneoftheBat
BaneoftheBat - 8/4/2025, 4:56 PM
Waiting for Josh to hop in and explain why in reality this is awful for Superman.
AllsGood
AllsGood - 8/4/2025, 5:15 PM
@BaneoftheBat - Actually due to the Smaller Budget for Fantastic Four 200 million. Still has a chance to make small Profit. Been only 10 days and have all of August and September with no competition.

Domestic = $198,427,635

International = $170,300,000

Worldwide = $368,727,635
MR
MR - 8/4/2025, 5:17 PM
@BaneoftheBat - lol his head must be exploding
AllsGood
AllsGood - 8/4/2025, 5:18 PM
@BaneoftheBat - The Fantastic Four: First Steps only needs to make 400 Million to Breakeven. The rest will be Profit.
EskimoJ
EskimoJ - 8/4/2025, 5:34 PM
@AllsGood - If we're going by the standard 2.5x rule, off a $200M budget, it would need $500M.
JDL
JDL - 8/4/2025, 5:35 PM
@AllsGood - That does not cover P&A ijit. That's $150M plus so you're not even close.
harryba11zack
harryba11zack - 8/4/2025, 5:35 PM
@BaneoftheBat -
AllsGood
AllsGood - 8/4/2025, 5:42 PM
@EskimoJ - Your right $500.00 is needed but only been 10 days. Long way to go.
GeneralZod
GeneralZod - 8/4/2025, 5:58 PM
@BaneoftheBat - He's going to gaslight us with (i) streaming and (ii) viewing patterns post-Covid. He will never say that the movie he rated 5/5 stars was simply good but not very good and certainly not special. He will never say that 4 years worth of DEI nonsense, bad writing, bad casting has razed Marvel Studios' brand name. He will double-down on Silver Surfer (she/her/hers) and call out "toxic fans" for daring to challenge the casting choices of this movie. This time, he can't blame the box office on streaming or viewing patterns; a 67% week 2 drop is an indictment on the movie and it's lack of sufficient word-of-mouth to sustain it.
lvcl
lvcl - 8/4/2025, 6:02 PM
@BaneoftheBat -

If they'd cast a more charismatic Reed Richard and Norin Rad as the Silver Surfer, they would have grossed over $1 billion.

Was it so hard to please fans?

Now the franchise's reputation has finally fallen, at risk of Doomsday's box office.
TK420
TK420 - 8/4/2025, 6:10 PM
@AllsGood - A smaller budget would explain why it looks like ass. I didn't know...
EskimoJ
EskimoJ - 8/4/2025, 4:57 PM
Yikes! 😬

gambgel
gambgel - 8/4/2025, 4:58 PM
I knew this would happen the exact moment they said the weekend estimates were 40m.

:|
SATW42
SATW42 - 8/4/2025, 4:58 PM
Billion dollar movies were never sustainable. It was never going to be "the norm" or continue that way.

we need to stop looking for every Marvel movie to be a Billion dollar plus hit, it's not ging to happen.

Yes, something like Avatar probably will be, but that will be because of the worldwide market (not that it won't be successful domestically also)
TheVisionary25
TheVisionary25 - 8/4/2025, 5:03 PM
@SATW42 - honestly the only contender right now for another billion is Avatar:Fire & Ash

Maybe Wicked:For Good and Zootopia 2 can get there too but I doubt it (moreso the latter then the former).
SonOfAGif
SonOfAGif - 8/4/2025, 5:42 PM
@SATW42 - Disney knows this. It's this site that doesn't. Because everyone on this site is a share holder and executive in the board rooms. There are other avenues and revenue streams for many of Disney's projects and yet this website believes that movie theaters are the sole source of income when it comes to revenue.
DS616
DS616 - 8/4/2025, 7:27 PM
@SATW42 - The MCU couldn't keep making record-breaking money forever. F'n *Ant-Man* movies used to make 600 million, and they weren't even good, let alone great like Superman. They could've released a Blade or Nova movie 10 years ago and they would've both effortlessly made 500 million+, but they can't ride the wave forever.

Unless it's a Spider-Man, Avengers or special event type movie like Deadpool & Wolverine there wont be any billion dollar Marvel movies anytime soon.
AleSir19
AleSir19 - 8/4/2025, 8:10 PM
@SATW42 - That is not really the issue, only a crazy person (it seens around the 90% of modern studio executives) would have though that 1-2 billions dollars box office films, would become the norm and were sustantable...

They were not, Hollywood was build around a system of making big movies for 1-10 million dollars and you know making back 50-100-300 millions... It was a safe system, one that made the US the biggest film industry...

Now the issue is that no one singles studio in Hollywood wants to make a good-cheap-old film for 10 or 5 millions, for them it looks like a huge financial risk...

But You know, making a 200-300 million dollars film, that is just a safe bet, even when the film Will clearly be mediocre or really Bad and fail...

So the issue here is not our expectations...

Is that Marvel spend like 220-230 million dollars making and trying to promote a Fantastic Four Film, and the film is struggling to make back his initial base budget...

We are alredy on the third week and they have not recoup The expenses in promotion or e even production of the film...

Is pretty wild.
dracula
dracula - 8/4/2025, 5:00 PM
The mcu’s 20th anniversary is 3 years away

Maybe get us there and then maybe time to reboot

Reign in budgets a bit and bring back the characters they know will sell

Plus will be nice to have all the marvel characters there from the start instead of having to find ways to make them fit
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