Marvel has its big hit for 2025. After both Captain America: Brave New World and Thunderbolts/The New Avengers underperformed in comparison to the franchise’s grand peaks, a lot was riding on The Fantastic Four: First Steps. Marvel waited a long dang time to get their hands on the first family of their universe back under the franchise umbrella, and they’ve pulled out all the stops in promoting it. And it’s paid off.
In its opening weekend, the movie grossed $118 million from 4.125 theatres. That gives Fantastic Four one of the biggest weekends of 2025 so far. Internationally, it’s got an extra $100 million in the bank, so yeah, this is a good first step (heh.) I’ve seen some people grumbling that this means the movie’s a flop, actually. I don’t buy that. Deadline says that it fell short of predictions for a $120m+ opening, and its worldwide debut of $218 million is $2 million shy of what Superman did in its premiere weekend. Can we just move on from the Marvel vs. DC wars already? Both can exist and competition is good because the last thing we need is more IP monopolies. Whatever way you square it, in a post-lockdown and post-strikes Summer when we’re all broke and the industry is kind of floundering, a $100m+ opening weekend is very good news.
Speaking of DC, Superman is still pulling in healthy numbers domestically. In its third week of release, it has a total of over $289.5 million. It’s now the eighth highest-grossing movie of 2025 so far and is only $7 million away from overtaking F1. Do it.
Debuting at number nine is Oh, Hi!, a dark romantic comedy starring Molly Gordon, with $1.115 million from 866 locations. Right behind that is the horror movie The Home with just over $1 million from 1,015 cinemas.
In limited release news: the found footage horror House on Eden took in $310,000 from 600 theatres; Shoshana, a historical drama set in 1930s Tel Aviv, earned $44,000 from 56 places (this one had its world premiere at TIFF in 2023, so one gets the feeling it was quietly dumped by its studio due to, you know, the genocide); Diciannove, an Italian coming-of-age film, brought in $18,196 from three places; and the comedy AJ Goes to the Dog Park made $13,500 from 32 locations.
This coming week sees the result of the new remake/reboot of The Naked Gun and the animated sequel The Bad Guys 2.
You can check out the rest of the weekend box office numbers here.
