MCU Fantastic Four Box Office Predictions

[Primal Slayer]

Thunderbolts and Brave New World shouldn't have been made in my opinion.

I'm just confused by BNW budget being as high it was. You get rid of Evans and his massive payroll and....it still cost more than WInter SOldier? This should've been THEEE reset. A cool $100-$150mill budget?

 

[SomeOldGuy]

Yeah. I hope that everyone understand that I'm not dogging on the film itself. But the extremely frontloaded OW and now the big drops suggest that only the Marvel diehards are showing up for it even though this is as GA-friendly as you can get with a new Marvel movie nowadays.

Thing is, the GA has never really gotten into “origin” films. This has been weirdly consistent across 20 years of MCU movies. Outside of Hulk, which flopped, and Captain Marvel, which was boosted by Endgame, they’ve all fallen between Cap1’s 370 and Guardians1’s 770. F4 looks like it will land around the midpoint of that range. So basically par for the course.

 

[Comicbookguy339]

I'm just confused by BNW budget being as high it was. You get rid of Evans and his massive payroll and....it still cost more than WInter SOldier? This should've been THEEE reset. A cool $100-$150mill budget?

Pretty sure they started with a 150M budget bu they reshot that thing several times. That adds up.

 

[psylockolussus]

I'm just confused by BNW budget being as high it was. You get rid of Evans and his massive payroll and....it still cost more than WInter SOldier?

It was supposed to come out before Deadpool & Wolverine, so everything (reshoots/rewrites) just increased the initial budget.

 

[psylockolussus]

Yeah. I hope that everyone understand that I'm not dogging on the film itself. But the extremely frontloaded OW and now the big drops suggest that only the Marvel diehards are showing up for it even though this is as GA-friendly as you can get with a new Marvel movie nowadays.

Second weekend drops
67.5% No Way Home
67.0% Multiverse of Madness
63.3% Wakanda Forever
62.2% Homecoming

Historically, comic book movies are frontloaded, so this shouldn't be surprising unless you were expecting this to hold like an animated Pixar movie.

 

[Spider-Fan]

I'm just confused by BNW budget being as high it was. You get rid of Evans and his massive payroll and....it still cost more than WInter SOldier? This should've been THEEE reset. A cool $100-$150mill budget?

Reshoots

 

[DarkKnight88]

Historically, comic book movies are frontloaded, so this shouldn't be surprising unless you were expecting this to hold like an animated Pixar movie.

I think people might have expected it to hold like Superman. Under 60% certainly for something much more well liked. But yes, Marvel always be frontloaded.

 

[Comicbookguy339]

Historically, comic book movies are frontloaded, so this shouldn't be surprising unless you were expecting this to hold like an animated Pixar movie.

Homecoming is the only good comparison. The others had much higher opening weekends so it makes sense they had big drops.

 

[psylockolussus]

Homecoming is the only good comparison. The others had much higher opening weekends so it makes sense they had big drops.

It had the biggest opening weekend for a Fantastic 4 movie, and it also opened higher than the other Mcu films that came out this year. The opening weekend for The Fantastic 4 wasn't so-so to begin with, that a big 2nd weekend drop shouldn't be surprising. If this is dropping over 70%, I would be alarmed.

 

[Lightning Strykez!]

We also have to take into account that families have had to shell out a lot of $$$ to see Jurassic World, Superman AND Fantastic Four back to back in the span of like, a month and change. Movie-going has become hella expensive. A bag of Skittles is $15 in NYC. It could be that people are simply exhausted financially and are conserving costs for other family things like back-to-school needs, last summer vacations with the kids, etc.

It may have been a mistake for Marvel to place F4 last so tightly behind the other big hits. However, since the WOM is great and the film opened so highly, I’m inclined to believe that the GA may simply have other priorities at the moment this particular week and may come back to catch the film in theaters in the weeks to come. All is not lost.

 

[CaptainWagner]

I'm just confused by BNW budget being as high it was. You get rid of Evans and his massive payroll and....it still cost more than WInter SOldier? This should've been THEEE reset. A cool $100-$150mill budget?

Ah, but you're thinking sensibly here. You have to look through the eyes of studio executive and see the possibilities of reshooting your entire movie multiple times to check the right combination of test group boxes and offend no one.

 

[Spider-Fan]

We also have to see how it fairs in weekend 3. Regardless, this is going to likely make something over 500 mil. We're doing fine lol

 

[Frodo]

Well , if the film is a "Flop" and " Bomb" as parts of fandom are proclaiming , and alleging, it's still the number one film this weekend .

Clearly, enough people are interested enough to make it the top draw two weeks in a row .

If some fans still consider that failure

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

Even before Disney+ and the pandemic, Avengers movies had weak first weekend multipliers. They got crowds that really wanted to see them early thus inflating the opening weekend and deflating the multiplier.

Pre-Disney+ and Pre-Pandemic era
The Avengers (2012) 3.01
Age of Ultron (2015) 2.40
Infinity War (2018) 2.63
Endgame (2019) 2.40
Avengers average 2.61
Avengers sequel average 2.48

Disney+ and [Post-] Pandemic era
Doomsday (2026) TBD
Secret Wars (2027) TBD

 

[Sithborg]

We also have to take into account that families have had to shell out a lot of $$$ to see Jurassic World, Superman AND Fantastic Four back to back in the span of like, a month and change. Movie-going has become hella expensive. A bag of Skittles is $15 in NYC. It could be that people are simply exhausted financially and are conserving costs for other family things like back-to-school needs, last summer vacations with the kids, etc.

It may have been a mistake for Marvel to place F4 last so tightly behind the other big hits. However, since the WOM is great and the film opened so highly, I’m inclined to believe that the GA may simply have other priorities at the moment this particular week and may come back to catch the film in theaters in the weeks to come. All is not lost.

Here's the thing. The numbers don't suggest that the WOM is that great. Otherwise, the numbers would have kept going up, kind of like Superman. Except, the actual kept coming in lower. And we are seeing a big drop this weekend. Low 60s drop isn't much to be concerned with. Over 65%, well, execs kind of start paying attention, unless you have a massive opening. And frankly, given the first week performance, it could be looking at a greater drop than the current 66% estimate. And heres the real problem with their release date, you have 2-3 weeks. Then, schools start going back, and you start losing the weekdays.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

Even before Disney+ and the pandemic, Avengers movies had weak first weekend multipliers. They got crowds that really wanted to see them early thus inflating the opening weekend and deflating the multiplier.

Pre-Disney+ and Pre-Pandemic era
The Avengers (2012) 3.01
Age of Ultron (2015) 2.40
Infinity War (2018) 2.63
Endgame (2019) 2.40
Avengers average 2.61
Avengers sequel average 2.48

Disney+ and [Post-] Pandemic era
Doomsday (2026) TBD
Secret Wars (2027) TBD

When you open that big, the multiplers are less relevant. Opening during Christmas might change that though.

 

[Sithborg]

When you open that big, the multiplers are less relevant. Opening during Christmas might change that though.

Still waiting for Feige to blink there. He needs those premium screens that Dune will keep.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

We also have to take into account that families have had to shell out a lot of $$$ to see Jurassic World, Superman AND Fantastic Four back to back in the span of like, a month and change. Movie-going has become hella expensive. A bag of Skittles is $15 in NYC. It could be that people are simply exhausted financially and are conserving costs for other family things like back-to-school needs, last summer vacations with the kids, etc.

It may have been a mistake for Marvel to place F4 last so tightly behind the other big hits. However, since the WOM is great and the film opened so highly, I’m inclined to believe that the GA may simply have other priorities at the moment this particular week and may come back to catch the film in theaters in the weeks to come. All is not lost.

I would argue the issue is there hasn't been enough combined business for this to be an issue. If F4's WOM was as good as suggested, it would be doing better. A lot better. It just hasn't connected with the GA the way the other two did. Which while good, neither have had ungodly legs. No one is pulling a Maverick here.

As for going forward, I would argue the issue there is it's reacting very much like a typical MCU flick as of late. The GA isn't invested. You could come up with a lot of reasons why, but it is what it is.

 

[Spider-Fan]

I dont think it's either a massive home run nor is it a bomb.

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

My old research from before 2020 showed that multipliers used to be higher for releases in December. It didn't stop Star Wars from a declining multipliers in that slot though.

Episode VII (2015) 3.78
Rogue One (2016) 3.43
Episode VIII (2017) 2.82
Episode IX (2019) 2.90

 

[DarthSkywalker]

Still waiting for Feige to blink there. He needs those premium screens that Dune will keep.

He's not going to. Dune will move. WB doesn't have the slate to risk it next year. The question is will they be able to get post done for a Oct/Nov release, or will they have to push it to March 2027.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

My old research from before 2020 showed that multipliers used to be higher for releases in December. It didn't stop Star Wars from a declining multipliers in that slot though.

Episode VII (2015) 3.78
Rogue One (2016) 3.43
Episode VIII (2017) 2.82
Episode IX (2019) 2.90

TFA is an all timer. It's the #1 film in US history. Rogue One opened a little lower. The other two were massively devisive and still had much better multiplers. Also all made over 500m, with TLJ making over 600m, and TFA being the GOAT.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

I dont think it's either a massive home run nor is it a bomb.

It's not a bomb. I'd argue it's disappointing as it shows a worrying trend that I do not think the next two years of movies will help.

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

Okay I found my old image of average monthly multipliers from 2018. I remember I scraped BoxOfficeMojo at the time to produce it and then they changed their site layout and I couldn't do it anymore. First entries (or long dormant sequels) tend to get higher multipliers and sequels tend to get lower but not always and releasing in December distorts things a bit as shown.

 

[BlackFox]

Its a shame its not doing better but thats movies I guess, you can never tell and the movies landscape itself has changed since Covid so it seems harder to predict and post Endgame things have been rocky anyway in terms of reception.

Just blows my mind how D&W flew past $1B this time last year and both Supes and F4 combined wont get to that and with an R rating.