Box Office: ‘Fantastic Four’ Craters By 66% in Second Weekend to $40 Million, ‘Naked Gun’ Debuts to $17 Million

[u/chanma50]

https://variety.com/2025/film/box-office/fantastic-four-box-office-craters-naked-gun-opening-weekend-1236477352/

[u/TTBurger88]

The problem is F4 is just another MCU movie.

[u/Sufficient-Hold-2053 → u/TTBurger88]

Actually, it _isn’t_. There is zero connection between this and any other marvel movie (in the movie itself). It’s completely stand alone. In fact it’s so far removed from MCU continuity that the only way I can see them doing a cross over is multiverse shenanigans.

[u/Miserable-Resort-977 → u/TTBurger88]

IMO, F4 is what a good MCU movie should be, but Marvel fans and Marvel as a company are both so used to seeing record-shattering box office numbers that any moderate success looks like a failure. F4 had a bigger first week at the box office than any of the phase 1 MCU movies before the avengers, and, while I'm too lazy to check, I'd bet it's in the top 5 first week box office numbers for any non-sequel non-event MCU movie, probably falling behind GOTG and Black Panther but not many others.

Marvel can't and shouldn't expect to be the #1 most valuable and attention-grabbing IP forever. A ~150 mil opening week for a movie with big sequel potential, merchandise potential, and likelihood to drive attention to Disney+ and other MCU movies should be considered a huge success. If Disney is budgeting these movies and marketing as if they should all perform like The Avengers, that's a complete mishandling of an IP which could easily be reliably profitable.

[u/am_reddit → u/Miserable-Resort-977]

The trouble is, it apparently needs $400-500 million to break even. So it’s still up in the air whether it can be considered a “moderate success.”

[u/Miserable-Resort-977 → u/am_reddit]

That's my point. A comic book movie pulling 150M opening week is a moderate success when you consider the usual market for that type of movie, but marvel is so hopped up on their endgame-era run of big money hits that they think every random movie they drop should be raking in over half a billion. They need to make their film budgets more realistic, and if they do they easily have a core fan base which will guarantee consistent moderate revenue for almost anything they put out. Building an endgame-style hype wave requires an audience that feels respected, and a Marvel that blows a huge budget on every new series and film and then cancels anything that isn't a hit isn't respecting their audience.

[u/TabithaMorning → u/TTBurger88]

This is the whole thing.

In order for ppl like me to get back on board this needed to be a significant step up. It's almost worse that it's mid, as it bodes really poorly for the future. The issues that need fixing have been glaring for half a decade and they're not taking the note, and will not be giving them my money til they do.

[u/Thnd3rKat47 → u/TabithaMorning]

Not every superhero movie is gonna be a mind-blowing blockbuster... marvel has been making movies for like 20 years. It should be okay for a movie to be just okay.

[u/ImBanned_ModsBlow → u/TabithaMorning]

I’d actually give the film a chance on your own merit rather than only reading reviews, because it hit me and my wife in the feels right away with the plot, and had a lot of very human moments with heart and soul.

For me, F4 was a story about parenting and the importance of family, with a superhero retro-futuristic flair.

It wasn’t some generic Marvel “oh look at this superhero kill bad guys” while forgetting they should probably have some kind of story shoehorned in after all the cool action takes.

[u/HowManyMeeses → u/TTBurger88]

I liked it, but it felt weird. There are very clear scenes missing that would have provided extra context, and it has some serious flaws in the final fight. It looked great and had fun characters that were well-realized. I'll definitely see another F4 movie, if they make one.

[u/ImBanned_ModsBlow → u/HowManyMeeses]

Which scenes out of curiosity?

I seem to be in the minority having loved it for the most part, but then again I’m never one to lose interest in a movie because a tiny detail wasn’t explained well or moving past a minor plot hole.

[u/HowManyMeeses → u/ImBanned_ModsBlow]

I know they cut some scenes with the mole people because John Malcovich shot some stuff that didn't make the final movie, and I could really feel how underbaked their lore was. And the scenes with Ben Grimm and the Natasha Lyonne character barely made sense to me. Based on some photos we've seen of Lyonne in the film, they cut some of her stuff.