Critically, Marvel has had a fantastic 2025, with both Thunderbolts* and Fantastic Four: First Steps getting great reviews and being heralded as the best Marvel has offered in years. But it really hasn’t translated to the box office. Thunderbolts* ended its run at just $382 million, and Fantastic Four saw a massive drop-off in its second weekend, losing 66% of its audience. Thunderbolts* had a reported budget of $170 million, and, according to the “You have to triple the film’s budget to make a profit” rule, they definitely fell short.
When it comes to Fantastic Four: First Steps, it’s clear that rebooting these franchises over and over just isn’t the answer. Especially when it’s about trying to bring in the general audience, which is where the money is made, they see the name “Fantastic Four” and, having already been duped by that a few times, with absolutely disastrous results the last time, they don’t end up going. This is too bad, as First Steps is a great movie in its own right, but it also feels very comic booky in its presentation. That’s going to turn some people off, especially when many are burnt out on superhero films. But is the solution to just focus on the Avengers?
*Spoilers for Thunderbolts* to follow*
I’d argue that they also can’t just be relying on the Avengers’ name to prop up the MCU. Even Thunderbolts* found itself victim to this, with the big reveal that the asterisk was because they were actually the New Avengers. There was even some promotional work that came out rather quickly, trying to convince others to see the film based on the Avengers brand. And it didn’t really work, despite the quality being there for the film. It felt like a desperate attempt to make more money versus organically bringing these characters together and building a team.
It’s going to be hard to fully judge the MCU brand for a little while because our next few outings are Avengers: Doomsday, Spiderman: Brand New Day, and Avengers: Secret Wars; all expected to do well on name and cast alone. Sure, if they screw the pooch with Doomsday, there’s going to be a ripple effect, but it’s not going to have the “Okay, Marvel is back!” feel if they nail it either. These films either bring back nostalgic legacy characters or go with the old reliable with Spidey. And there’s going to have to be a realization at some point: the Superhero trend has died down, and it may be irreversible until it comes back into vogue, cyclically.
And honestly, it lasted a very long time. We’re in a period where it’s mostly hardcore fans, and those who are in the vicinity are the ones showing up to buy tickets while the general audience sits at home. It hasn’t really been a cultural event in many years and is unlikely to be until people can miss it. Trends are cyclical, and superheroes desperately need something else to come along to take their place for a bit. And it really doesn’t help that nearly everyone knows that, usually just one month after the theatrical release, they’ll be able to watch it at home. There’s no urgency to get to the theater to see stuff. It also doesn’t help that so many of these films have felt like hardly anything changes from beginning to end, so there isn’t any fear of spoilers potentially ruining the experience and forcing people to go to the theater out of necessity. First Steps’ most significant issue was that nothing changed outside of introducing us to these characters. Only, this is the fourth reboot of Marvel’s First Family, and many are already familiar with them. There isn’t this feeling of “I NEED to see this.” That’s what Marvel needs to get back to.
There started to be this fear that having so much MCU content meant there was more homework for each subsequent film. Due to that fear, we started to have so few changes from film to film that they started to feel like nothing was really even moving forward. So if they truly want to go back and change things, pare it all down and make their films essential to watch again. Build storylines we care about instead of just throwing legacy actors at us and hoping we bite on nostalgia. Every character’s story doesn’t need a $200 million budget in order to be exciting and fresh on the big screen. Those should be saved for the Avengers-level films that will then make those special. And expectations for grosses simply need to be lowered. Captain Marvel’s billion-dollar intake clearly gave the wrong impression that just any character can make a boatload of money. But that’s not the case. Some will only make $300 million, and that’s okay. Give these more modest budgets so that they can actually make a profit.
Blade and X-Men are currently in development, and there’s no reason that these films have to be $200+ million spectacles. Yes, even X-Men. This series can connect with smaller stories and then build to massive films. Hell, when it comes to X-Men, they can practically be their own universe. It’s all about characters properly connecting with the audience. There’s a reason that Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine is one of the most popular big-screen comic characters, despite not representing the comic version in many ways. It’s because people were able to connect with him. That’s true of most of the Legacy actors who are coming back for Doomsday and Secret Wars. They connected with audiences. And that’s what we need to get back to. Focus, just one film at a time, and give us actual stakes. Until that happens, they’re just kicking the can down the road.
How do you think Marvel can fix their MCU profit decline? What potential characters would you like to see them focus on? Do Teamup films have the same effect that they used to?
