STOP THE COUNT!
“The Fantastic Four: First Steps” continues to stumble at the box-office. Those Pedro Pascal walkups aren’t happening. It only made $4M on Friday from roughly 3600 theaters, nudging its domestic tally to about $219M.
‘Fantastic Four’ might not even hit $270M domestic, and $500M global. Odds are that, much like Marvel’s other 2025 releases, ‘Thunderbolts and ‘Brave New World, this one might lose money.
At first glance, these numbers might seem modestly respectable, but the underlying reality paints a much more troubling picture for Marvel Studios and Kevin Feige’s once dominating empire.
For months leading up to the release, people believed ‘Fantastic Four’ was well-positioned to be one of the summer’s stronger launches. The film benefited from a relatively open release window, and yet, in a year filled with a string of underwhelming MCU entries, audiences might simply be done with them.
The truth is the MCU is fading. The multiverse is start to unravel, and the fallout is now visible in the box office numbers. This movie was absolutely front-loaded, ticket pre-sales were the best of 2025, and Marvel’s dedicated fanbase showed up on opening weekend, but the general moviegoing public has been ghosting the product.
You can’t blame it on bad reviews either — unlike “Captain America: Brave New World,”‘Fantastic Four’ and “Thunderbolts,” were given higher marks than almost any other MCU movie this decade. However, the broader audience has checked out, and disregarded them entirely.
For Kevin Feige and Marvel Studios, the future is uncertain. After years of near-invincible dominance, the cracks are visible. A string of underperformers could be putting his job in danger.