It’s not looking great for the Fantastic Four box office numbers, which struggled to keep up this weekend. At the domestic box office, Marvel’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps raked in $117 million in its opening weekend, but that has dropped significantly to $44 million for its second weekend. That’s a 66% decline, which is quite a severe drop when compared to DC’s Superman 2025 only having a 53% drop in its sophomore weekend. This doesn’t bode well for a film that hopes to be a comeback for Marvel and Disney in 2025 after the middling performances of Thunderbolts* and Captain America: Brave New World. Several reports provide some of the reasons why Fantastic Four 2025, despite high praise from fans and critics, isn’t faring as well in the US as originally hoped.
Why is The Fantastic Four: First Steps struggling at the box office?
First, let’s look at the box office performance for The Fantastic Four: First Steps so far. By Monday, August 4, the filmed has earned $368 million worldwide with $198 million at the domestic box office and $170 million internationally. That’s still an impressive number, but for the second weekend (from August 1 to 3) it only raked in $44 million domestically.
For comparison, Captain America: Brave New World dropped by 68% while Thunderbolts fell by 56% by their second weekends. While Fantastic Four’s 66% decline fits within this year’s trend for Marvel films, the movie received very favorable reviews from critics and audiences alike, with an 87% Tomatometer and 92% Popcornmeter from Rotten Tomatoes. It’s a reboot for a team of superheroes that fans have wanted to see in the MCU for years, it’s a tie-in for Avengers: Doomsday, and it has a fantastic cast spearheaded by Pedro Pascal. So what’s going on? Is this superhero fatigue or something else?
According to a few experts at least, the problem is actually that it’s the Fantastic Four itself. Jeff Bock, an analyst for Exhibitor Relations, said on X (formerly Twitter), “Fantastic Four is not a top-tier Marvel franchise. Never has been… Remember, this ramps up into Avengers. That’s the real payoff.” Erik Kain from Forbes agrees, stating that the Fantastic Four characters “are not particularly popular” and that “no Fantastic Four movie prior to this has been very good.” In a 2022 survey from Talker that polled 2,000 people, none of the Fantastic Four characters made it into the Top 10 for America’s favorite superheroes.
Another factor is simply the competition at theatres this past weekend. The Bad Guys 2 and The Naked Gun took a decent chunk with its debuts, with the animated sequel getting $22.2 million and The Naked Gun reboot earning $17 million. Superman 2025, which had the luxury of not having another superhero film take the spotlight for a couple of weeks after its release, took in $13.9 million at the box office. Altogether, these three movies grossed more than Fantastic Four did over the weekend, taking some of the momentum out of its sails.
Also, superhero films have a tendency to become available via streaming, with DC movies heading to HBO Max and Marvel movies going to Disney+. Many consumers who have subscriptions to these platforms would rather wait for The Fantastic Four: First Steps to be added to the catalog instead of going to the theater. The COVID-19 pandemic deepened the trend of major films going to streaming, and consumer behavior continues to follow this.
Besides, paying for a ticket on top of a popcorn and a drink is seen more as a luxury these days. A CBS poll in May 2025 found that 65% of Americans feel “stressed” about their finances and 76% say that their income is not keeping up with inflation. This would make audiences more selective when it comes to which superhero film they want to watch, and Superman would have the edge given that it come out first and is a larger property than Fantastic Four.
