Fantastic Four Suffers Large Box Office Drop, Naked Gun Opens At #3

The Fantastic Four: First Steps is continuing to dominate the box office. The superhero movie, which introduces the titular quartet to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, debuted on July 25 with a $117.6 million domestic opening weekend that was the franchise’s best of the year.

The sophomore weekend of the Fantastic Four: First Steps release sees it being joined in theaters by multiple major new releases, including the Liam Neeson comedy legacy sequel The Naked Gun and DreamWorks’ animated heist comedy sequel The Bad Guys 2.

Per Deadline, as of Saturday morning, The Fantastic Four: First Steps is projected to conclude its sophomore weekend with a 3-day total of $40 million at the domestic box office. While this sees the movie dropping a rough 66%, it is still more than enough for it to hit No. 1 on the chart for the second weekend in a row.

Both new releases are trailing behind the superhero movie, with The Bad Guys 2 set for $22.8 million and The Naked Gun expected to take in $16.5 million. If the latter title does hit that mark, it will be the best opening weekend for a Neeson-led movie in more than a decade, since 2014’s Taken 3 ($39.2 million).

What This Means For The Fantastic Four: First Steps

While the week 2 drop of 2025’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps is less severe than Marvel’s earlier 2025 outing Captain America: Brave New World (-68%), it is far worse than their follow-up 2025 title Thunderbolts* (-56%).

A drop this severe does not necessarily mean that the movie will fail to be a success, as the billion-dollar MCU title Spider-Man: No Way Home had an even worse drop, falling 67.5%. However, it had an advantage over Fantastic Four because its 3-day debut of $260.1 million was substantially higher, giving it a loftier perch from which to fall.

However, both Brave New World and Thunderbolts* underperformed compared to their reported $180 million budgets. While Fantastic Four had a better opening weekend than either of those previous MCU movies (Captain America opened with $88.8 million while Thunderbolts* earned $74.3 million), it also comes with a bigger reported budget of more than $200 million, which could complicate its prospects.

The budget of The Fantastic Four: First Steps could place its theatrical break-even point as high as $500 million. While it is still more than capable of reaching that total by the end of its run, the margin by which it will be able to turn a profit is now looking slimmer than it did during the movie’s opening weekend.

Our Take On The Weekend Box Office

While it was more or less a given that The Fantastic Four: First Steps would top the chart during its second weekend, the fact that the two competing new releases had strong debuts for mid-level titles shows that similar upcoming movies could potentially topple the superhero project earlier than anticipated during a relatively quiet August.

At first, it didn’t necessarily seem like Freakier Friday (out August 8) or Nobody 2 (due August 15) would have the strength to outgross The Fantastic Four: First Steps. However, it seems probable that it will fall to No. 2 soon, especially with Box Office Theory projecting a Freakier Friday debut between $30 and $45 million.

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Source: Deadline & Box Office Theory