Disney’s latest superhero film, Fantastic Four: First Steps, opened strongly enough last week, but suffered a deep drop off in its second weekend in theaters, foreshadowing bad news for the film in the long run.
The film suffered a surprising 66 percent loss of revenue in its second weekend, dropping from its $117.6 million box office take last week to a mere $40 million over weekend two, according to The Wrap.
Its overseas impact mirrors its domestic box office, as well. The film opened strong with more than $108 million overseas. But for weekend two, that take collapsed to only $39.6 million.
In the end, this may portend bad news for the film. Even though it had a nice opening weekend and received hearty praise from critics and fans alike, the money is simply not following. It could mean that the film may fail to break the $500 million threshold worldwide.
It all smacks of superhero movie overload, as the genre seems to be giving studios diminishing returns.
Marvel’s other recent superhero flick, Thunderbolts, was also a disappointment for Disney. According to World of Reel’s math, Thunderbolts will lose more than $100 million for Disney.
With a budget of $400 million, including production and promotion, Thunderbolts only earned about $350 million in its first month in theaters. And Thunderbolts was the third film in a row for Marvel that did not perform as hoped. Captain America: Brave New World, and The Marvels were also box office disappointments.
Meanwhile, DC Comics’ movies for Warners is finding a similarly hard slog at the box office. Despite that James Gunn’s newest Superman reboot was well received by fans and critics, the film has earned less than hoped.
After its first two weeks in theaters, the film earned about $406 million worldwide, but with a $400 million budget, that take is not near enough to earn back its production costs.
Disney has suffered a series of flops in other areas, too.
Along with Fantastic Four not being the big earner it had hoped, Disney also found flops with Snow White, and it’s Pixar film, Elio.
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