The Fantastic Four: First Steps hasn't reached the same heights as Superman at the North American box office, but it's also not the flop many people would have you believe.
The Marvel Studios reboot pulled in a decent $3.92 million on Wednesday, taking its 13-day domestic total to $212 million. Yesterday, it surpassed Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania's total of $214.5 million and is expected to rise to upwards of $233 million through its third weekend in theatres.
Box office analysts still expect The Fantastic Four: First Steps to finish its U.S. run with $280 million - $290 million, meaning it will be the MCU's highest-grossing non-sequel since 2019's Captain Marvel.
It won't come close to reaching $1 billion, but when Disney and Marvel Studios look at numbers like those, you'd best believe they'll be happy—or happy enough—with a result that confirms there's interest in these characters.
Earlier this week, it was reported that Matt Shakman will return to direct a sequel to The Fantastic Four: First Steps. The hope is that Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars will help bring Marvel's First Family to an even bigger audience, and with a solid (albeit not spectacular) haul for this movie, that should be enough to ensure we haven't seen the last of this team.
Marvel Studios has also released some new spoiler stills from The Fantastic Four: First Steps. You can check those out below.
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.
Also appearing are Natasha Lyonne as Rachel Rozman, Paul Walter Hauser as Harvey Elder/Mole Man, Sarah Niles as Lynne Nichols, and Mark Gatiss as Ted Gilbert. John Malkovich was set to play Red Ghost, but was cut due to time constraints.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps is directed by Matt Shakman from a screenplay by Josh Friedman and Eric Pearson and Jeff Kaplan & Ian Springer.
In our review of The Fantastic Four: First Steps, we concluded, "The Fantastic Four is an exceptional introduction to the MCU’s First Family, and thanks to a Jack Kirby-infused feel that’s unlike anything we’ve seen before, it proves to be a quintessential superhero movie with Marvel Studios at its brilliant best.
The movie is now playing in theaters.