With $279m global opening, The Fantastic Four: First Steps breaks a box-office curse

LOS ANGELES – Marvel Studios over the weekend took a step towards regaining its reputation as Hollywood’s most reliable hitmaker.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps was expected to collect about US$118 million (S$151 million) at theatres in North America from Thursday through Sunday, according to Comscore, which compiles ticketing information. Based on advance ticket sales and surveys that track moviegoer interest, Hollywood had expected First Steps to arrive to about US$115 million in domestic ticket sales.

The movie, which cost at least US$300 million to make and market worldwide, was on pace to generate an additional US$100 million overseas, for a global opening total of roughly US$218 million. Reviews were generally strong.

It was Marvel’s first original breakout hit in six years. The film is not a sequel – the characters were adapted from Fantastic Four comics, first published in 1961.

Marvel had previously tried to strike gold with movies such as Eternals, which fizzled in 2021, and Thunderbolts*, which was released in May and has taken in US$382 million, the lowest total in Marvel’s 17-year, 37-film history when adjusted for inflation.

Marvel’s sequels have also been hit-and-miss, contributing to fears of “superhero fatigue” in Hollywood. In some ways, its runaway success in the 2010s made it arrogant. The studio’s storytelling became tortuously complicated, weaving together plots from numerous TV shows and movies, and prompting some casual moviegoers to decide that Marvel cared only about comic nerds.

Disney, which owns Marvel, pushed hard on a First Steps marketing message in the weeks leading up to the film’s release: You do not need a doctorate in Marvelology to understand this one.

“It is a no-homework-required movie,” Mr Kevin Feige, Marvel’s president and chief creative officer, said at a publicity event. “It literally is not connected to anything we’ve made before.”

The Fantastic Four – composed of Invisible Woman, Human Torch, Mister Fantastic and the Thing – have proved difficult to adapt for the movies, making the response to First Steps more notable.

A low-budget version in 1994 was so slapdash that its release was cancelled. A 2005 effort was loathed by critics and fans, but it performed well enough in theatres to get a slightly less reviled sequel, Rise Of The Silver Surfer (2007).

The property was rebooted in 2015, but that version also fizzled at the box office and is derisively remembered as the Fantastic Four movie in which the Thing wore no pants.

First Steps, directed by Matt Shakman (WandaVision, 2021), stars Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn, Pedro Pascal and Ebon Moss-Bachrach. Julia Garner co-stars as the enslaved Silver Surfer. Critics praised the movie for its strong ensemble, retro-futuristic setting and satisfying villain (Galactus), among other aspects.

“The movie is a step up in concept, storytelling and appeal,” said Mr David A. Gross, a film consultant who publishes a newsletter on box-office numbers. “We haven’t had this kind of performance from the genre for a long time.”

First Steps arrived two weeks after Superman, which was a hit for DC Studios and Warner Bros. It slipped to second place at US$24.9 million, putting its global take over the US$500 million mark.

Mr Gross noted that studios are releasing only four superhero movies in 2025 – they have all come out – down from eight in 2023.

“This is the new normal,” he said, explaining the pullback as Hollywood realising that supply had exceeded demand. As of now, the next superhero movie is 11 months away: Supergirl, in June 2026. NYTIMES