The Fantastic Four: First Steps’ Box Office Drop Is Not the Disaster It Might Seem

The word-of-mouth on The Fantastic Four: First Steps has been extremely surprising, especially recently. Despite receiving solid reviews from critics and having one of the biggest opening weekends of 2025, the buzz around the movie has almost entirely shifted after its second weekend. Despite only being in theaters for ten days, certain parts of the internet have deemed the film a flop after having a steeper-than-expected drop at the box office. After grossing $117 million in its domestic opening weekend, the film went on to a disappointing $38 million in its second weekend. With Superman having a steady $58 million after a $125 million opening weekend, people were shocked that The Fantastic Four: First Steps failed to replicate its success.

Despite a 67% drop in its second weekend, The Fantastic Four: First Steps remains one of the highest-grossing movies at the domestic box office in 2025. While its second weekend drop isn’t exactly what people were hoping for, it’s far from a colossal failure that people have let it out to be.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps Is Still Performing Well at the Box Office

Despite what people are saying online, The Fantastic Four: First Steps is still performing quite well at the box office. The film has a budget of roughly $200 million, and the film made $215 million in its worldwide opening weekend. Opening over the film’s budget is a great sign of becoming a success for the studio. Even though it had a bigger second weekend drop than expected, its worldwide total stood at around $370 million. Received wisdom dictates a movie must earn 2 to 2.5 times its production budget to break even thanks to additional costs like marketing. At the minute, The Fantastic Four: First Steps is still projected to make somewhere between $520-570 million. In other words, it’s likely set to make a small profit.

And when you bring in other films in 2025, the film is grossing higher than all of them. Domestically, the film has already passed the other two MCU films released this year, those being Captain America: Brave New World and Thunderbolts*. The worldwide gross is also close to passing both films, with the two scoring $415 million and $382 million, respectively. Besides Deadpool and Wolverine, which became the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time, The Fantastic Four: First Steps is looking to be the highest-grossing MCU movie since Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, which would be a great win for the studio.

The film is also still performing well in comparison to almost every other film in 2025. Domestically, its $208 million gross stands as the seventh-highest-grossing movie of the year. The film has the potential to break into the top five, with How to Train Your Dragon and Sinners standing at $260 million and $278 million. If The Fantastic Four: First Steps continues to have a steep drop off, then it may not end up reaching these two films, but being the seventh-highest-grossing movie of the year domestically in itself is not an insignificant achievement.

A Box-Office Drop is Normal For Marvel Movies

While The Fantastic Four: First Steps wasn’t expected to have as big a drop as it did, it isn’t anything uncommon with Marvel. Just this year, Captain America: Brave New World had a 68% drop in its second weekend despite having no competition. The Fantastic Four: First Steps went up against Superman and Jurassic World Rebirth, which are two of the highest-grossing movies of the year that are showing excellent legs at the box office. If anything, it should be commendable that The Fantastic Four: First Steps didn’t gross less than it did in its first and second weekend, as it could’ve easily performed worse with its fierce competition.

Marvel movies usually have between a 50-70% percent decline in their second weekend. While most Marvel films, like Thunderbolts* and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol . 3, are able to stay in the 50% range, going beyond 60% isn’t uncommon. Even major successes like Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness had a 63% and 67% drop in their second weekend, but were not even remotely discussed as flops. Even Spider-Man: No Way Home, one of the highest-grossing movies of all time, had a 67% drop in its second weekend. Especially with blockbusters that open with over $100 million in their opening weekend, it is very common that the second weekend drops are fairly big, and pretending that The Fantastic Four: First Steps is any different than these films is strange.

If The Fantastic Four: First Steps were taken out of theaters today, it may even be within an acceptable reaching distance of its production and market budget, but the film also has weeks, if not months, to gross millions more. People have been way too quick to judge a film’s performance when the final tally hasn’t even been close to beginning. Unless the film continues to decrease by 60% every weekend, the widespread message of The Fantastic Four: First Steps being a flop is highly unwarranted.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps is now playing in theaters.

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