Worldwide Opening Box Office Success For 'The Fantastic Four: First Steps'

Marvel

Jul 28

Fantastic Four — Image Source: ComicBook

It’s welcome news for Disney and Marvel: After the last two cinematic releases, Captain America: Brave New World and Thunderbolts*, both struggled at the box office, the third MCU film of the year is on track to become a major hit: After mostly positive reviews, leading to an A- CinameScore, raving exit-polls and an audience score of 93% on Rotten Tomatoes, The Fantastic Four: First Steps grossed $218 million globally in its first weekend, split between $118 million domestically and $100 million from overseas.

For the sake of comparison, James Gunn's Superman made $220 million globally in its first weekend of release.

While this $118 118million is lower than the estimates from Saturday, which predicted a domestic opening between $120 million and $125 million after a strong opening day gross of $57 million, it is still above expectations before this weekend.

Internationally, First Steps' earnings are 13% ahead of Thunderbolts*, 11% ahead of Superman, and 4% above Brave New World in like-for-like markets at current rates. It scored the biggest superhero opening of 2025 in Mexico, the UK, France, Italy, Spain, and many European and Latin American regions.

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Still, a global box office of 46% is a departure from previous years, when superhero movies made noticeably more than half of their global gross outside the US: 59% for the first Avengers movie, 69% for Endgame, and 52% for Deadpool and Wolverine. The overseas percentage of just 42% for Superman (which crossed the $500 million threshold this weekend) shows that US-made "popcorn movies" are no longer guaranteed home runs abroad, and especially China, Korea, and Japan are markets that are harder and harder to conquer for US films.

What could help First Steps battle the lingering superhero fatigue is that the film doesn't require any prior "homework" from its audience, as it is not connected to any of the previous MCU films or TV shows, and its strong emphasis on family could appeal to both casual movie-goers and hardcore fanboys/fangirls.

As film critic David Rooney wrote in his review: “The pleasing back-to-basics feel in The Fantastic Four: First Steps suggests Marvel has learned valuable lessons from its recent box office underperformers. There’s a fresh willingness to prioritize character over the usual barrage of interchangeable CG action sequences that often overwhelm them, instead giving us relatable folks to invest in.”

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