Marvel is breathing a little sigh of relief this weekend. The Fantastic Four has had a cinematic legacy that some might generously categorize as snakebit. From the shelved quickie Roger Corman version in 1994 to the critically derided but financially successful Tim Story launch in 2005 and its sequel up to Josh Trank’s extended first-act origin story that still ranks as one of the worst-reviewed wannabe blockbusters of all-time (Rotten at 9%). Now officially canonized into the MCU as a prologue to the return of Robert Downey Jr. as Doom, this one shows some Marvel Classic energy.
King of the Crop: The Fantastic Four: First Steps Scores a Big Win for Marvel
The Fantastic Four: First Steps from director Matt Shakman (of WandaVision) opened with a solid $118 million. That’s far from an all-time Marvel debut, but it is the third-best start (after Deadpool & Wolverine & Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3) since 2022’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. That may only include six movies, but three of them (Captain America: Brave New World, Thunderbolts*, and The Marvels) did not even open to nine digits, and all significantly underperformed by Marvel’s high standards. First Steps could even rank as the second-best start if Monday estimates come out higher than GotG3′s $118.4 million.
From the launch of The Avengers up until the pandemic, every one of Marvel’s films has grossed over $500 million globally, with nine of them hitting over a billion and two of those over two billion. Since then, seven of the last 13 MCU films have failed to reach half a billion. Three of those were released in 2021 in the heart of the pandemic, grossing between $379-$433 million each. The fact that both Brave New World and Thunderbolts* fit into that range five years later had to raise a few alarm bells.
Fantastic Four certainly benefits from name recognition, and the promise to not do them dirty and deliver the genuine family-like dynamic may just pay off. Critics are certainly on board, rewarding the film with a Certified Fresh badge of honor with a Tomatometer score that currently stands at 87%. That’s higher than the three previous Fantastic Four films combined. However, the numbers that matter for Marvel have the dollar sign in front of them, and there may be some initial concerns that the film had quite the frontloaded weekend.
First Steps made $57 million on Thursday and Friday versus $61 million estimated on Saturday and Sunday. The $28,606 per-theater average ranks 17th among MCU films, and all of them grossed over $300 million. In fact, every MCU film to open over $117 million has reached $300 million. Despite it representing roughly 48.3% of its final weekend, First Steps actually had the 14th-best Thursday/Friday of the lot. Thor: Love and Thunder also had 48.25% of its first weekend gross ($144.1 million) on Thursday/Friday, and even after falling 67.7% in its second weekend, it still legged out over $343 million through most of July and August.
With a global total already over $218 million, Marvel should find itself back in the $500+ million camp worldwide. A reported $200+ million budget will want to see that number stretch a bit into Superman territory, but seeing how their forthcoming schedule leans to new Spider-Man and a return of the Fantastic Four to face Robert Victor Von Downey Doom Jr. in Avengers: Doomsday, 2026 should be a nice palate cleanser for many of their recent misfires.
Tales of the top 10: Superman Crosses $500 million, How to Train Your Dragon Crosses $600 million
James Gunn’s Superman had two weeks before Marvel entered the fray. IMAX theaters were surrendered and the expected drop of 50%+ rang true, as the film made $24.9 million in its third weekend. That puts its 17-day total at $289.5 million and right on the verge of passing Man of Steel’s (non-inflated) 2013 total of $291 million. How many more films will it pass? Right now, we’re talking a total gross just inside of the top 50 of all time for 17-day totals, at No. 49 ahead of Toy Story 3 ($289.1 million) and behind Furious 7 ($294.5 million). Superman’s spirit animal at the moment is actually Spider-Man, specifically Sam Raimi’s first sequel Spider-Man 2, which made $24.7 million in its third weekend to drive its total to $284.6 million. Staying on that path would put Superman in the $365-385 million path on the domestic side. That would be a nice little boost in helping the film potentially get to around $700 million worldwide, though it continues to look like a landing in the $650-700 million range. Its international gross this weekend was down to $19.8 million and now stands at $213.2 million, bringing its global haul over $502 million at the moment.
It took just 8 days for Jurassic World to reach $300 million. It was 14 for Fallen Kingdom and 17 for Dominion. Sunday is day 26 for Jurassic World Rebirth and it just reached the milestone. It made $13 million in its fourth weekend for a total of $301.5 million, but that is still a significant domestic slowdown for one of the most popular and profitable franchises ever. Yes the film is well into profit thanks to its global sales, but even those international dollars are shrinking, going from $1.018 billion in 2015 to $890.7 million in 2018 down to $625.1 million in 2022. Rebirth is currently at $416 million, putting its worldwide total at $718.4 million. Nothing for a Brachiosaurus to sneeze at, but Universal is still staring at a global decrease of around $200 million from the previous entry. At this rate, an eighth Jurassic film could be down to just $500 million total, maybe just enough to turn a profit. How many more trips to new islands are left in this series?
Five weekends. Five stays in the top five for F1: The Movie. Brad Pitt, Joseph Kosinski, Apple Films and Warner Bros.’ Formula One film made another $6.2 million, bringing its total to $165.5 million. That is still closely aligned with F9, which had $163.5 million after 31 days; this is going to end up around $180 million domestic. The highly-budgeted film just passed half a billion ($509+ million) globally, which, with very conservative optimism, would normally be enough to start waving the checkered flag. But some have the finish line as high as $600 million or even $750 million — numbers that seem unlikely by the time it leaves theaters.
Paramount’s pickup of Smurfs is not exactly working out in their favor. Each entry proved less successful than the last, and here we are in weekend two with the latest making $5.4 million, driving its total to only $22.7 million domestic. Even with international audiences doing their part with now $46.3 million, this does not appear to have the smurf to make the roughly $150 million smurfs it needs to get out of the red. Those who know their smurfs (and colors) know that blue plus red turns to purple, and once Papa gets bitten the Smurfs will be no more. Gnap.
Say what you will about I Know What You Did Last Summer — that its numbers are disappointing given horror sequels recently, or that it is somehow worse than the 1998 sequel, for example — but it may actually be a success where it counts for Sony. Down to $5.1 million this week, the film has made just $23.5 million domestically, but another $22 million overseas has it over $45 million, which means the $18 million production could be counting dollars in the black. Also from Sony, Danny Boyle’s 28 Years Later has also reached $70 million domestic and $150 million globally, so Sony could begin to communicate profit there as well.
Despite being currently available on PVOD, one of the summer’s big hits, How To Train Your Dragon, made another $2.8 million in its seventh week in the top 10. That’s over $257 million domestic and now $605.9 million worldwide. It only needs to reach $619 million to outgross the animated How To Train Your Dragon 2, which is getting its own live-action treatment in the summer of 2017.
Ari Aster’s Eddington, meanwhile, fell 64% down to $1.6 million. The divisive indictment of America widening its division during the pandemic has made $8.1 million in 10 days. It will outgross Beau is Afraid ($8.17 million), which A24 platformed for a week before widening out. A24’s highest drops for wide releases include The Front Room (-73%), Opus (-72.7%), MaXXXine (-69.1%), Y2K (-67.6%), Men (-63.5%), Eddington (-62.4%), The Green Knight (-61.8%), It Comes At Night (-56.6%), Civil War (-56.1%), and Heretic (-54.1%). Aster’s films Hereditary and Midsommar fell 49.5% and 44.1%, respectively. A24’s release of Eva Victor’s Sorry, Baby expanded from 80 to 338 theaters and made $400,000 this weekend. It has made $1.6 million total after five weeks. By comparison, another Sundance premiere was released this week in 866 theaters by Sony Classics. Oh, Hi! debuted in ninth place to $1.1 million.
Disney is having quite the whirlwind summer, and it is epitomized by the two films closing out the top 10 this week, likely with their final appearances. The worst is represented by Pixar’s lowest-grossing film ever in Elio with just $71.4 million to date. It’s looking like it will go down as the biggest bomb of the summer, which are words you previously never could have imagined saying about the premier producer of family entertainment over the last 30 years. On the other hand, it’s a live-action remake of a non-Pixar animated film from Disney that is primed to win the summer season. Now over $420 million domestic and $1.01 billion globally, Lilo & Stitch is going to be on top of the charts until the Wicked Witch and the Na’vi get their shot later this year.
On the Vine: The Naked Gun Needs Your Help to Save Comedy
Can Hollywood return to the days of summer comedies? More importantly, will audiences return to the files of Police Squad when Akiva Schaffer’s reboot of the classic The Naked Gun hits theaters with Liam Neeson as Frank Drebin, Jr.? The future of comedies streaming directly to Netflix, Amazon, and beyond will be on the line with this one, as Neeson himself explains in the helpful PSA above. Universal will also try to break the curse of August animation with the sequel The Bad Guys 2. The original film turned into a solid little hit in April 2022. Could this be just the second animated film ever released in August to gross $100 million?
Full List of Box Office Results: July 25-27, 2025
- The Fantastic Four: First Steps – $118.0 million ($118.0 million total)
- Superman – $24.8 million ($289.5 million total)
- Jurassic World: Rebirth – $13.0 million ($301.5 million total)
- F1: The Movie – $6.2 million ($165.5 million total)
- Smurfs – $5.4 million ($22.7 million total)
- I Know What You Did Last Summer – $5.1 million ($23.5 million total)
- How To Train Your Dragon – $2.8 million ($257.0 million total)
- Eddington – $1.6 million ($8.1 million total)
- Oh, Hi! – $1.1 million ($1.1 million total)
- Elio – $957,000 ($71.4 million total)
Erik Childress can be heard each week evaluating box office on Business First AM with Angela Miles and his Movie Madness Podcast.
Thumbnail image by ©Marvel Studios
