Kevin Feige Just Gave His Honest Verdict on ‘Fantastic Four: First Steps’ Box Office Performance

Marvel Studios has built its reputation over the years on more than just box office totals, even if those numbers tend to dominate every headline the moment a new film hits theaters. For Kevin Feige, success has never been a single, tidy metric, and that philosophy was on full display in a recent conversation about one of the studio’s more divisive recent releases.

That conversation arrived at a moment when Marvel has plenty to celebrate elsewhere, with ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ currently smashing box office records and dominating the cultural conversation. Against that backdrop, Feige took a moment to reflect candidly on how a different Marvel release from last year fits into the studio’s broader story.

Speaking with Variety, Feige addressed ‘Fantastic Four: First Steps‘ directly when discussing the ongoing conversation around so-called superhero fatigue. “Many things can be true at once,” Feige told Variety. “I think last year’s ‘Fantastic Four’ looked and sounded like nothing that had been done in a superhero movie before, and it only [grossed] $521 million.”

The comment reflects Feige’s broader argument that box office performance alone doesn’t tell the full story of whether a Marvel film succeeded creatively. Rather than framing ‘First Steps’ as a disappointment, his phrasing suggests the film’s innovative approach to tone and style was itself a meaningful achievement, even if the financial results landed below some of the studio’s biggest hits.

That distinction matters given how differently ‘Fantastic Four: First Steps’ and ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ have performed at the box office. While ‘Brand New Day’ has already claimed the biggest opening weekend in box office history with a global haul north of $900 million, ‘First Steps’ settled into a more modest, if still substantial, $521 million worldwide total.

Feige’s willingness to hold both realities at once, praising the creative ambition of one film while acknowledging its comparatively softer commercial performance, speaks to how Marvel Studios is approaching this current stretch of releases. Rather than treating every film as a binary hit-or-miss proposition, Feige appears focused on emphasizing what each entry contributed creatively to the larger MCU tapestry.

The comments came during a wide-ranging conversation where Feige also discussed ‘Brand New Day”s record-breaking opening, calling the moment “overwhelming” and crediting the film’s success to director Destin Daniel Cretton, star Tom Holland, and producer Amy Pascal. He also used the opportunity to look ahead, teasing that the ending of ‘Brand New Day’ sets up future Marvel projects tied to characters created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

For a studio that has weathered plenty of scrutiny in recent years over inconsistent box office results and debates about franchise burnout, Feige’s comments on ‘Fantastic Four: First Steps’ offer a window into how Marvel leadership is choosing to frame its recent output. Rather than dwelling on shortfalls, the approach seems to be about contextualizing every release within a much longer creative arc.

With ‘Brand New Day’ currently riding high and ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ still on the horizon for December, Feige’s comments suggest Marvel is entering this next chapter with a clear-eyed, if optimistic, view of its recent track record, wins and all.

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