{"id":296437,"date":"2025-07-27T17:41:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-27T17:41:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/296437\/"},"modified":"2025-07-27T17:41:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-27T17:41:11","slug":"marvel-movie-opens-to-118-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/296437\/","title":{"rendered":"Marvel Movie Opens to $118 Million"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\u201cThe Fantastic Four: First Steps<\/a>\u201d is off on the right foot at the box office.<\/p>\n

\n\tMarvel<\/a>\u2018s latest comic book adaptation has lifted off with $118 million from 4,125 North American theaters over the weekend. Those ticket sales were slightly ahead of expectations<\/a> of $100 million to $110 million. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cFantastic Four,\u201d a retro-futuristic adventure starring Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Joseph Quinn as the titular team, collected another $100 million at the international box office for a global total of $218 million. Directed by Matt Shakman, \u201cFantastic Four\u201d follows the foursome of Mister Fantastic (Pascal), Invisible Woman (Kirby), The Thing (Moss-Bachrach) and Human Torch (Quinn) as they protect their world from a planet-devouring cosmic being.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBased on initial turnout, \u201cThe Fantastic Four: First Steps\u201d is shaping up to be a needed win for Marvel Studios. The comic book empire, which has become Hollywood\u2019s most reliable hit maker<\/a>, has greatly struggled with commercial consistency over the past five years. The company has succeeded in post-pandemic times with entries led by familiar faces such as \u201cSpider-Man: No Way Home,\u201d \u201cDeadpool & Wolverine\u201d and \u201cBlack Panther: Wakanda Forever.\u201d But attempts to put the spotlight on newer characters were major financial missteps. This May\u2019s well-reviewed \u201cThunderbolts*,\u201d for example, ended its theatrical run with $382 million and stands as one of the lowest-grossing installments in Marvel\u2019s 37-film franchise. After inundating viewers with too many interconnected films and television shows, Disney\u2019s CEO Bob Iger has already said there\u2019s\u00a0a mandate for Marvel to do less at a higher caliber<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe Fantastic Four\u201d cost above $200 million to produce and needs to keep up the momentum to avoid the fate of other recent Marvel movies like February\u2019s \u201cCaptain America: Brave New World\u201d ($100 million debut over four days) and 2023\u2019s \u201cAnt-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania\u201d ($106 million) which collapsed after strong starts. However, those films were poorly reviewed. \u201cFirst Steps\u201d has the benefit of positive word-of-mouth, including an 88% on Rotten Tomatoes and an encouraging \u201cA-\u201d grade on CinemaScore exit polls. Plus, there\u2019s virtually no competition on the horizon in terms of all-audience tentpoles.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe Fantastic Four: First Steps\u201d got a boost from premium large formats, which delivered a massive 46% of ticket sales. Imax led the way with $16 million domestically or 13.6% of the initial haul, marking the second-highest marketshare ever for an MCU film. In terms of the audience breakdown, nearly 70% of opening weekend crowds identified as male, while 42% of all ticket buyers were under the age of 25.<\/p>\n

\n\tHollywood has attempted many times to bring The Fantastic Four \u2014 known colloquially as Marvel\u2019s first family \u2014 to the big screen, but none struck the right chord with critics or audiences. The first efforts from 20th Century Fox (which owned the characters prior to the studio\u2019s 2019 merger with Disney) were two decades ago with 2005\u2019s \u201cFantastic Four\u201d ($330 million) and its sequel 2007\u2019s \u201cFantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer\u201d ($301 million). Those films, starring Jessica Alba and Chris Evans, were financially successful but critically derided. Meanwhile, a widely panned 2015 reboot with Miles Teller, Kate Mara and Michael B. Jordan completely fizzled ($167 million globally) in theaters.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c\u2018Fantastic Four\u2019\u00a0was a modest and struggling superhero series; it just caught up with the biggest and the best,\u201d says analyst David A. Gross of Franchise Entertainment Research.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe Fantastic Four: First Steps\u201d ranks as the year\u2019s fourth-biggest domestic debut following \u201cA Minecraft Movie\u201d ($162 million), \u201cLilo & Stitch\u201d ($146 million) and \u201cSuperman\u201d ($125 million). \u201cFantastic Four\u201d opened two weekends after fellow superhero tentpole \u201cSuperman,\u201d which slid to second place with $24.9 million from 3,930 screens, a 57% decline from its prior outing. The Warner Bros. and DC Studios adaptation has generated $289.5 million domestically and $502.7 million globally. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c\u2018Fantastic Four\u2019\u00a0and\u00a0\u2018Superman\u2019\u00a0are performing extremely well,\u201d Gross adds. \u201cSuperheroes are showing some swagger, and it\u2019s good news for the industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThird place on domestic box office charts went to Universal\u2019s \u201cJurassic World Rebirth\u201d with $13 million from 3,550 venues in its fourth frame. The dinosaur epic, which rebooted the long-running property with Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey and Mahershala Ali, has grossed $301 million in North America and $718 million globally. Although these are strong ticket sales \u2014 it\u2019s one of only three Hollywood releases to surpass $700 million this year \u2014 the latest \u201cJurassic\u201d has to keep climbing to near the heights of the prior sequel trilogy, all of which grossed $1 billion globally.<\/p>\n

\n\tApple\u2019s \u201cF1: The Movie\u201d impressively moved up to the No. 4 spot with $6.2 million in its fifth lap around the track. That\u2019s a 37% decline from the previous weekend, bringing ticket sales to $165.6 million domestically and $509 million worldwide. It\u2019s a very encouraging result for an original, adult-skewing property and ranks as Apple\u2019s highest-grossing movie by a mile<\/a>. The racing drama, starring Brad Pitt, has a high bar to clear in terms of profitability because the studio spent $250 million to produce the film, not including its global marketing efforts.<\/p>\n

\n\tParamount\u2019s animated musical \u201cSmurfs\u201d rounded out the top five with $5.4 million from 3,504 venues, a 50% drop from its disappointing $11 million debut. The family film has earned $22.7 million at the domestic box office and $46 million internationally for a worldwide tally of $69 million. \u201cSmurfs\u201d carries a $58 million price tag.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt No. 6, Sony\u2019s slasher sequel \u201cI Know What You Did Last Summer\u201d added $5.1 million from 3,504 locations \u2014 tumbling by 60% from its opening weekend. The film has grossed $23.5 million domestically and $45.5 million globally. Sony spent a modest $18 million to produce the film, so it won\u2019t take a ton of coinage to justify its budget.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThe Fantastic Four: First Steps\u201d is off on the right foot at the box office. Marvel\u2018s latest comic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296438,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[77,3985,20192,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-296437","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-marvel","10":"tag-the-fantastic-four-first-steps","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114926432146687080","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296437\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}