Why Fantastic Four’s Box Office Projections Are Steadier Than Superman’s

In a surprise, the Fantastic Four box office projections have remained steady, particularly when compared to Superman’s. Where The Fantastic Four: First Steps had a slight increase in its predictions since initial tracking in early June, those for Superman 2025 continued to dip until its release. Fortunately, a new report provides some insight into why Marvel’s upcoming film, releasing nationwide on July 25, has kept up with pace with DC’s reboot so far.

What’s the latest box office tracking for The Fantastic Four: First Steps?

Box office tracking for The Fantastic Four: First Steps remains consistent at $125 million to $155 million for its opening weekend and $277 million to $395 million for its overall domestic sales.

This is based on a July 11 report from Box Office Theory, which gives a few reasons for the film’s resiliency up to this point. While Superman 2025 releases two weeks before The Fantastic Four: First Steps, its second position looks to be a “benefit” as the “next-on-deck tentpole release” this summer. Specifically, the site believes that this means “pre-sale pacing [for the movie] will accelerate organically over the next two weeks.”

In particular, sales for early screenings on Thursday, July 24, are on pace to hit $25 million. The report believes that this number has the “potential to climb if reviews and buzz escalate.” As a point of comparison, Superman’s box office estimates for Thursday, July 10, is $23.9 million when including sales from Amazon Prime Early Access.

An earlier report in June from the analytics site provides several reasons why the upcoming Fantastic Four film still has high appeal and had a teaser trailer (currently with 30 million views) that nearly matched the same number of views for the Deadpool & Wolverine trailer when it came out. A part of the demand comes from fans who have wanted to see the superhero team be included into the MCU. We also believe that many want to see them rebooted from the duology in the mid-2000s, and that it’s rare to see the popular world-eating Galactus featured in a film.

The reports points out that the film has notably positioned itself as the most important Marvel outing in 2025 when placed beside Captain America: Brave New World and Thunderbolts*. It’s also clear that The Fantastic Four will be featured in Avengers: Doomsday, which has a delayed release date of December 18, 2026, and that fans will need to know what happens in this movie to understand the next Avengers film featuring Doctor Doom. If the spoiler plot leaks for the film is true, that will certainly be the case.

Audiences that follow superhero films likely won’t want to select between Superman or The Fantastic Four this year and instead “will show up for both.” This is despite viewers becoming “more selective about which comic book films get them into cinemas.” In addition, there aren’t that many high-profile tentpole competitors for Fantastic Four 2025 in the weeks after its release. The closest would be The Bad Guys 2 on August 1 and Freakier Friday on August 8, both of which are expected to earn around $100 million at the domestic box office.

In early June, Fandango announced that the film had the site’s best first-day ticket pre-sales in 2025 (that is, until Superman swooped in and took that record away). It was also previously voted as the second most-anticipated movie for the year in Fandango’s 2025 Moviegoing Trends & Insight Study.

While there aren’t any exact numbers for the budget for The Fantastic Four: First Steps, it’s estimated to be over $210 million. This means that the film will need to rake in a sum somewhere between $450 million and $500 million to break even.