Looks like “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” was heavily front-loaded.
Things were looking great for the latest MCU movie last Friday, it had practically matched Superman’s Thursday and Friday tally but then came a significant drop on Saturday and Sunday. The end result was a $117M opening weekend.
Deadline now reports that ‘Fantastic Four’ is projected to see a steep 61% drop in its second weekend, according to their sources, bringing in an estimated $45M. In case you’re wondering, that’s not good.
The budget for ‘Fantastic Four’ isn’t quite clear. The trades originally reported it cost $200M, but then you had Variety saying it was higher than that. We might never know, but it does look as though the film might struggle to hit $500M by the end of its run.
Meanwhile, you have “Superman,” which despite struggling overseas, has actual legs domestically inching ever so close to a $300M North American tally. Its current worldwide gross is $509M. That’s not bad for a film that’s supposed to launch James Gunn’s DCU, but should we call it a major success? A whole other article could be written about that.
‘Fantastic Four’ and ‘Superman’ reviews have been very similar, with a matching A- CinemaScore to boot. Although, on-paper, critics and audiences have given both films similar scores, with ‘Fantastic Four’ edging ‘Superman’ on Rotten Tomatoes (86% to 83%) overall word of mouth seems to slightly favor James Gunn’s film.
Maybe Puck’s Scott Mendelson has a point—in the post-pandemic era, $800M might be the new $1 billion. We've seen a noticeable drop in films crossing the billion-dollar threshold this decade. In 2019 alone, nine movies hit that mark while from 2020 to 2025, only ten have reached it in total.
That raises the question: should a superhero movie that grosses $500–$600M by the end of its run now be considered a success? According to Gunn, the answer appears to be yes.