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.

THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS Concept Art Reveals An Even Bigger Galactus And A Robotic Giganto
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THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS Concept Art Reveals An Even Bigger Galactus And A Robotic Giganto

THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS Poll Results Are In - Find Out What CBM's Readers Made Of The MCU Reboot
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THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS Poll Results Are In - Find Out What CBM's Readers Made Of The MCU Reboot

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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...
Canyoublush
Canyoublush - 8/4/2025, 6:12 PM
@BaneoftheBat - Superman is doing great. Wildly praised and the most successful solo superman film to date. This proves that the general audience have bad taste in movies. They will consume anything thrown at them. Superman is like MacDonald’s it’s pure junk but it’s popular. People will consume and feast on it excessively no matter how toxic it is underneath. MacDonald’s satisfies the taste buds superman satisfies people’s minds that are brainless. Barbie grossed a billion in 2023. Pure disposable entertainment and now superman is halfway to a billion. Nothing wrong with that. The MCU will bounce back accordingly but at least they don’t spew out complete junk.
Ryguy88
Ryguy88 - 8/4/2025, 6:22 PM
@MR - User Comment Image
EskimoJ
EskimoJ - 8/4/2025, 6:42 PM
@lvcl - Not sure where you're pulling a billion from when this property's never come close to that.

The only new properties in the MCU to gross a billi are The Avengers, Black Panther, and Captain Marvel... 6+ years ago.
Fogs
Fogs - 8/4/2025, 7:07 PM
@EskimoJ - well to be fair DP&W made over 1.3B.

Ooh that sweet nostalgia.
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.
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
Fogs
Fogs - 8/4/2025, 7:08 PM
@dracula - thanks for reminding me how [frick]in old I am. 🤣
itzayaboy
itzayaboy - 8/4/2025, 5:00 PM
Doesn’t help when the movie was exceedingly average. Thunderbolts was a lot more enjoyable IMO.
TheFinestSmack
TheFinestSmack - 8/4/2025, 5:19 PM
@itzayaboy - Agreed. I've watched Thunderbolts twice now and I enjoyed it way more than FF. Yelena has more charisma than all four of this team put together.
HistoryofMatt
HistoryofMatt - 8/4/2025, 5:01 PM
The Fantastic Sue and Her Three Buddies is yet another box office bomb for Disney.

Eventually, SOMEONE will have to be held accountable for ruining Pixar, Lucasfilm, and Marvel, and it's not Bob Chapek.

The buck stops with Bob Iger who has REFUSED to hold Feige and Kennedy and Doctor accountable.
Arthorious
Arthorious - 8/4/2025, 5:17 PM
@HistoryofMatt - are people still putting the blame on Chapek? If so that’s pretty crazy
dragon316
dragon316 - 8/4/2025, 5:17 PM
@HistoryofMatt - spotlight was mainly on sue others they did stuff besides baby bring her back
HistoryofMatt
HistoryofMatt - 8/4/2025, 5:27 PM
@Arthorious - At this site? Yep. Wilding still passes the buck to Chapek. Did it even just a few weeks back. It's insane. Chapek got blamed for all the crap Iger greenlit years before Chapek took over, and when Chapek came in he did his best to fix what he could. The main fixes were to the parks, especially Star Wars Galaxy in getting rid of the new characters and replacing them with OT characters and in cancelling the idiotic Galaxy's Edge Hotel. The few successes Disney has had with Pixar, Marvel, and Lucasfilm in the last few years were actually greenlit by Chapek (Andor, Moana 2, Guardians 3, Spider-Man NWH).

That's not to say he did everything perfectly. He turbocharged content for Disney+, but again, it's because the parks were hemorrhaging money and they needed to get D+ subs increased quickly to infuse cash into the company. So some of the worst failures can also be laid at his feet, like She-Hulk.

However, in firing Chapek and replacing him with Iger, which Iger orchestrated, they bypassed the studio heads whose failures Iger greenlit that were blamed on Chapek: Kevin Feige, Kathleen Kennedy, and Pete Doctor.
Ryguy88
Ryguy88 - 8/4/2025, 6:25 PM
@HistoryofMatt - Marvel Studio built an empire by keeping their movies as close to the source material as reasonably possible and focusing on the characters that fans wanted to see the most. It's very clear where they went wrong.
bobevanz
bobevanz - 8/4/2025, 5:02 PM
Disney didn't want Superman running away so they decided to kill their movie with the effort of TRYING to take out Superman's legs. If it wasn't for China Supes would have destroyed MOS. Wah wahhhh
F4ntasticClunge
F4ntasticClunge - 8/4/2025, 5:30 PM
@bobevanz - its all china's fault!

User Comment Image

😉🤡
ThorArms
ThorArms - 8/4/2025, 5:05 PM
Time for Marvel to go to one movie a year.
Fogs
Fogs - 8/4/2025, 7:10 PM
@ThorArms - * one GOOD movie a year.
gambgel
gambgel - 8/4/2025, 5:06 PM
studios should just stop putting their big movies all in the same month.

they are just idiots. Superman in June and Fantastic Four in November, for example, would have gave them a bit more money. at least $60m or maybe even more.
grif
grif - 8/4/2025, 5:07 PM
75 billion dollars for fox well spent

AllsGood
AllsGood - 8/4/2025, 5:07 PM
Looks like Marvel Studios Spider-Man: Brand New Day the only movie that will save us from Burnout.

Superman and The Fantastic Four: First Steps are FLOPS and Failed Too. Sad Day :(

User Comment Image
OrgasmicPotatoe
OrgasmicPotatoe - 8/4/2025, 7:15 PM
@AllsGood - Don't forget Brave New World like we all did !
harryba11zack
harryba11zack - 8/4/2025, 5:09 PM
another victory for DC
User Comment Image
Fogs
Fogs - 8/4/2025, 7:11 PM
@harryba11zack - Let's not get carried out, lol. "Another".
Spike101
Spike101 - 8/4/2025, 5:10 PM
It’s hardly surprising is it, Marvel chose to shoot themselves in the foot with some unpopular casting choices, running with the lesser known female version of the Silver Surfer, going for a weird different universe and that awful voice for the Thing. Who signs this rubbish off?
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