As of end of day Sunday August 10, The Fantastic Four: First Steps has accrued $230.7 million domestically and $204.6 million internationally for a worldwide total of $435.3 million. It still has some time on the big screen before making its video on demand debut, provided it follows the Captain America: Brave New World release strategy (two months between debut in theaters and debut on digital retailers). However, even with those few more weeks, First Steps will nonetheless end up a bit below what Disney and the film’s creatives hoped for. But it’s still not quite one of the Marvel Cinematic Universe‘s lowest grossing films. In fact, at this point of time, it has already beaten eight other installments in terms of worldwide gross. However this means 28 other movies are ahead of it.
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We’re going to go through all eight of them, but the question is, could it overtake any of the others? Furthermore, is it the highest-grossing MCU movie of 2025? In short, yes and yes. As for the others it could overtake, Thor‘s $449.3 million and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania‘s $476 million without a doubt seem in reach. As for Ant-Man‘s $519.3 million and Iron Man‘s $585.8 million…never say never, but they’re not sure things.
1) The Marvels
In 2019 Captain Marvel made a massive $1.1 billion against a budget of $160 million. That same year, Brie Larson’s Carol Danvers then appeared in Avengers: Endgame, which was a genuine pop culture juggernaut.
Four years later, The Marvels became the first MCU film to not even cross $100 million domestically. It didn’t do much better overseas, either. All in all, it grossed just $206 million worldwide. Worse yet, its budget was double that of Captain Marvel, possibly even more. This will almost certainly always be the MCU’s biggest bomb. It’s a shame, too, because it’s one of the MCU’s more underrated efforts.
2) The Incredible Hulk
The one MCU movie to come from Universal Pictures, The Incredible Hulk showed that the budding franchise was far from infallible. It couldn’t even double its $150 million budget. Specifically, The Incredible Hulk netted $265.6 million, which wasn’t even much more than Ang Lee’s Hulk from five years prior. Until The Marvels, it looked like this fun but hollow film would remain the MCU’s lowest grossing. It doesn’t even particularly feel like a part of the overarching saga, even if there have been attempts over the years to further incorporate it.
3) Captain America: The First Avenger
Of all the MCU A-listers, Captain America without a doubt has the toughest time drawing in audiences overseas. This was especially true of the original film, Captain America: The First Avenger, even if it is one of the absolute best movies of the overarching franchise.
2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier scored $714.4 million against a price tag of about $170 million. The reason for that was the fact that 2012’s The Avengers solidified the MCU as an umbrella of sorts. If a movie fell under that umbrella, it was an event, even if the character’s name had America in it and you did not live in America (also, The Avengers exposed people to Cap who did not meet him in his debut movie one year prior). Captain America: Civil War was as much an Avengers movie as it was a Captain America solo film, hence it taking off with nearly $1.2 billion against $250 million. The First Avenger, however, was pre-Avengers and introducing a character who had never been in a mainstream motion picture. It was also a period piece, so there were factors working against it. It made only $370.6 million against a budget upwards of $216.7 million. It was an integral component of Phase One, but not a particularly profitable one.
4) Thunderbolts*
If there’s a true failure among the three MCU movies of 2025 it is, quite unfortunately, Thunderbolts*. It didn’t even look like it would end up as such, given how it experienced a lighter drop from first weekend to second than Captain America: Brave New World. But it also didn’t open as high as Brave New World, and the end result was a concerning $382.4 million against an MCU typical $180 million budget. It’s hard to know what exactly happened here. For one, the reviews should have helped more than they did. It’s also not likely that the film’s title change shortly after hitting theaters really confused anyone.
If anything, the reveal of it being The New Avengers should have resulted in an even lighter drop from first weekend to second. What it really comes down to is the fact that none of its characters were carryovers from particularly revered projects. Overall, people thought Black Widow was fine, and that’s three of the six teammates right there (though one of them lasted only a few minutes). Furthermore, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier didn’t entrance many Disney+ subscribers, Ant-Man and the Wasp hit theaters seven years prior to the release of Thunderbolts*, and Winter Soldier has always hovered just below the A-list of the MCU roster. Not to mention, if looking at the marketing materials, one would think it was an event MCU film, but it’s actually far more intimately psychological than much of the catalogue, which simply may not have been what people were looking to spend money on at the beginning of the summer movie season.
5) Black Widow
If anything underscores just how much of a failure Thunderbolts* ended up being (in terms of box office receipts, not quality), it’s the fact that it barely beat Black Widow. Their worldwide tallies are about as close to tied as multi-hundred million dollar worldwide hauls for multi-hundred million dollar movies can be.
Bear in mind, Black Widow hit theaters in June of 2021, when COVID-19 fears were keeping audiences from theaters. Undoubtedly, its worldwide haul was substantially dinged by it being the one MCU film that was released in theaters and on Disney+ (with Premier Access) simultaneously. With a surprisingly massive budget of $288.5 million, Black Widow only generated $379.8 million in revenue. So, at the end of the day, at least Thunderbolts* had a substantially more reasonable price tag.
6) Eternals
All due credit to Chloé Zhao, as she had a tough task in bringing the Eternals to the big screen. With the Guardians of the Galaxy, James Gunn had quirky material to work with, and his quirkiness resulted in the right voice bringing the right characters to screen. The Eternals aren’t nearly as quirky or endearing or entertaining. The result is a pretty dry film, and while pre-release hype was adamant on saying this would be the MCU’s second major Oscar contender, the release week reviews told a different story.
Phase Four was the point where audience interest was beginning to show troubling drops, and Eternals was arguably the point where quite a few of the remaining viewers checked out. It’s ironic because the primary complaint with the MCU these days is that it’s too content to repeat what has worked for it in the past. Eternals is far more of a curveball than a repetition, it just wasn’t quite the right curveball. If anything, it’s pretty depressing for a superhero movie. By the end of its run, it only accumulated $402 million with a price tag of $236.2 million.
7) Captain America: Brave New World
Even though Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson had been in Captain America: The Winter Soldier and a few Avengers movies, Brave New World felt like the introduction of a new character. All told, it was never going to hit the highs of Winter Soldier or Civil War. But it still should have netted more than $415.1 million (against $180 million).
As mentioned, Mackie was an established MCU presence, but it was also the debut of Red Hulk. Unfortunately, the (fair) reviews didn’t do it any favors, mostly informing the audience that there wasn’t anything here the MCU hadn’t already done better in other places. Furthermore, it was more of a continuation of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and The Incredible Hulk than to the whole Captain America franchise. One of those was a Disney+ series that didn’t really take off with audiences and the other was a mostly fine installment that hit theaters 17 years earlier. It felt like a placeholder film instead of an event, and that’s exactly how it played in theaters.
8) Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
Marvel has had overall solid success bringing lesser known characters to the big screen and getting audiences interested. And, while it wasn’t a Guardians of the Galaxy level of success by any stretch of the imagination, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings did quite well for itself.
It certainly did better than Eternals, which was marketed as more of an event film than Shang-Chi. The difference is that Shang-Chi is actually a fun movie. The result was the highest-grossing MCU movie of 2021, beating both Eternals and Black Widow with $432.2 million worldwide against at most $200 million.
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Image courtesy of HBO
