Fantastic Four Box Office Stalls, Fails To Beat Superman

Round 1 goes to James Gunn and the new DCU, as Gunn’s Superman flick is flying high and has managed to beat Fantastic Four‘s opening box office weekend.

I left Friday for Comic-Con where it was looking like Fantastic Four was coming out on top. FF overperformed for its Thursday previews bringing in $24.4 million, higher than the estimates, and beating Superman‘s $22.5M. If the trend continued through the weekend, Fantastic Four would have beaten Superman‘s opening of $125M, however, FF did not and fell short.

Monday update: Actuals have come in and they’re lower both domestically and internationally. FF earned $117,644,828 domestically, and $99,058,811 from foreign gross, for a worldwide gross of $216,703,639.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps box office opening

Marvel’s Fantastic Four only brought in ~~$118M~~ $117.6M domestically. Check out the daily comparisons below, where you can see FF stalls on Saturday and especially on Sunday where the actuals come in much lower, suggesting Thursday and Friday were front-loaded with Feige’s zombie fans that eat anything that Feige throws their way.

Comic-Con reactions

I will say that I talked to a lot of people at Comic-Con who didn’t get a chance to see Fantastic Four, yet, but whether that makes a difference, I am doubtful. I suppose if FF picks up during the week, you’ll have your answer. What I really found interesting is that a lot of them were wearing FF shirts and such, but admitted they hadn’t seen the movie. Again, maybe because they were at Comic-Con, yet that didn’t hurt Deadpool & Wolverine last year.

I also think it was a huge mistake not bringing FF to the SDCC this year. Marvel Studios skipped the entire event, while James Gunn appeared not only at the DCU Peacemaker Season 2 panel, but also he made a surprise appearance at the DC Jim Lee panel. My friend actually won the super awesome Superman prize they gave out (she had a Q-tip), which included Gunn’s autograph, a Jim Lee sketch, and more.

Fantastic Four opens soft internationally

Back to the box office report, similar to Superman, Fantastic Four also opened soft overseas bringing in ~~$100M~~ $99M. Fantastic Four ‘s worldwide opening stands at ~~$218M~~ $216.7M. Gunn’s Superman opened to $220M worldwide and has now passed the $500M mark (but took longer than The Batman, more on that below).

Fans like it

Fantastic Four still has an 87% Rotten Tomatoes score from the critics, and the audience score is at 93%. The CinemaScore is also at an “A-“, so that fans who saw the movie liked it. I did. You can read my review here. I can’t recall any of the Comic-Con fans that saw FF telling me they didn’t like it. Superman, on the other hand, yep, reactions were big time divisive. And yeah, everyone hates the Jor-El thing and the message that it sends about immigrants (Asian community is livid who has completely rejected Gunn’s Superman at the box office).

Who will have better legs?

It will be interesting to see how well FF performs in the coming weeks. Domestically, at least, Superman has been performing pretty well, though it fell big time in weekend 3. Check this out: Superman brought in $24.6M in weekend three for a drop of 57.5%, compared to The Batman‘s $36.7M+, a drop of only 44.8%. Yikes.