Everyone expected Fantastic Four to have a weak opening, but the 20th Century Fox reboot of the classic Marvel characters failed to even win the box office. The film, stuck with mounting negative press, awful reviews and a director that even disowned it, had one of the worst openings for a superhero movie in recent memory.
As a result, Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation held a second weekend at the top spot, grossing $29.4 million in its second weekend. After 10 days, the Paramount film is now up to $108.6 million domestically. It has grossed $156.7 million from foreign territories, so any thought that Cruise’s appeal might have slowed down can be put to rest.
FF got off to a terrible start Thursday night, grossing just $2.7 million from early screenings. By Friday night, it was obvious that the $120 million film was going to struggle to hit even $30 million. According to Rentrak estimates, it only grossed $26.2 million domestically and just $34.1 million from foreign territories.
So what went wrong? FF’s failure on a massive level was probably the biggest example so far of social media completely killing a movie before it even opens. Reports of director Josh Trank being difficult while filming were well circulated and it didn’t help that Trank himself tried to distance himself from the final product. The tide was already against the film and it proved that if Fox alienates those who really love the characters, it has lost its opening weekend audience.
The other films opening in theaters this weekend hit expectations. Joel Edgerton’s The Gift, which was the first release by STX Entertainment, debuted to $12 million and in third place. Sony’s Ricki and the Flash with Meryl Streep had a respectable $7 million opening and Aardman’s animated Shaun the Sheep Movie made $4 million over the weekend.
The Top 5 also included Vacation, with $9.1 million and Ant-Man with $7.8 million.
image of ‘Fantastic Four’ cast courtesy of Roger Wong/INFphoto.com