The North American film market last weekend made people wonder if the familiar Marvel is back. Its latest film, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, was released in 4,125 theaters over the weekend and earned $118 million in opening box office, which was in line with market expectations and became the fourth best North American opening performance so far this year, after Minecraft: The Movie ($162 million), Lilo & Stitch ($146 million), and Superman ($125 million).
"Fantastic 4" takes a retro-futuristic approach.
Once upon a time, Marvel movies were a killer weapon that was invincible in the North American film market and even on the global screen. However, in the past five years, with the audience's aesthetic fatigue and the ups and downs of the quality of the works, the box office performance of Marvel movies began to fluctuate. Although there are successful works such as "Spider-Man: Homecoming", "Deadpool and Wolverine", and "Black Panther 2", whenever the protagonist is not a well-known Marvel superhero, the box office performance will be relatively poor. For example, "Thunderbolt*", which was released in May this year, received quite good media reviews, but the audience was unwilling to buy it. In the end, it only received a global box office of 382 million US dollars, becoming one of the lowest-grossing works among all 37 Marvel movies.
2005 version of "Fantastic Four"
2015 version of "Fantastic Four"
Unlike Thunderbolt*, which features almost all new faces, the main characters in Fantastic Four are relatively more familiar to the audience. The reason is that this IP has been adapted to the screen three times in the past 20 years. The 2005 Fantastic Four and its sequel, starring Jessica Alba, Chris Evans and others, were quite successful at the box office, but failed to receive positive reviews from the media. After that, the 2015 reboot Fantastic Four, starring Miles Teller, Kate Mara and Michael B. Jordan, received poor reviews and box office, with a global box office of only $167 million.
The latest version, directed by Matt Shakman, follows the so-called retro-futurism route, telling the story of Mr. Fantastic (Pedro Pascal), the Invisible Woman (Vanessa Kirby), the Stone Man (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) and the Human Torch (Joseph Quinn) protecting the Earth from the attack of the cosmic creatures that devour the planet. The entire film cost more than $200 million to produce. This also means that the good opening box office this weekend does not mean that Marvel Studios can sit back and relax. Because Captain America: Brave New World, which was released in February this year, also reached $100 million in North American box office four days after its opening, but it lacked stamina and ultimately only earned $200 million in North American box office and $400 million in global box office. Compared with the high investment, it is still classified as a commercial failure.
"Fantastic 4" has received very good reviews from the media and audiences.
In comparison, the advantage of Fantastic 4 is that both the media rating (88% freshness on Rotten Tomatoes) and the audience reputation (CinemaScore A- after the screening) are among the better in the Marvel movie series. However, judging from the single-day box office distribution from last Friday to last Sunday, the box office drop of Fantastic 4 in its second weekend is likely to be higher than that of Superman.
In addition, another problem of "Fantastic 4" is that its overseas box office is mediocre, with only $100 million in three days, slightly better than "Superman"'s $95 million. In particular, its box office in mainland China is quite unsatisfactory, earning only about $4.5 million over the weekend, ranking behind overseas markets such as Mexico ($12 million), the United Kingdom ($10.8 million), France ($5.7 million) and Brazil ($5.1 million), and even lower than "Superman"'s opening box office of $6.6 million in the Chinese market. How to make the world's second largest film market embrace Marvel again is still crucial to its future development.
The Indian film "The Destined Partner", a remake of the Korean film "My Mind is Eraser", became the second highest-grossing Indian film in the world in 2025.
On the weekend North American box office chart, the top ten films are almost all old films. "Superman", "Jurassic World: Resurgence", "F1: The Drive" and "The Smurfs" ranked second to fifth. Ranked ninth is the Indian musical "Saiyaara", which earned $1.28 million at the weekend. The film is a remake of the classic Korean love movie "The Eraser". It was released on July 18 and has been tear-jerking. It has become the second highest-grossing Indian film in the world in 2025, second only to the action film "Young Lions". Ranked tenth is also a love film. "Oh, Hi!" released by Sony Pictures earned $1.12 million at the opening box office after being released in 866 theaters in North America over the weekend.
