‘Fantastic Four’ Just Hit A Very Funny Rotten Tomatoes Milestone

The review embargo lifted for Fantastic Four: First Steps yesterday, which makes it one of the best-reviewed movies of the post-Endgame era. But looking outside that ranking list, Fantastic Four has achieved a rather hilarious milestone on Rotten Tomatoes.

It’s well known that there have been many attempts at Fantastic Four movies in the past, but they were…bad. The original two Fantastic Four movies, 2005’s FF and 2007’s Rise of the Silver Surfer, were praised for their core cast, Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Michael Chiklis and a pre-MCU Chris Evans as Johnny Storm, but there was no real getting around the fact that they were not very good. Meanwhile, a more recent attempt, 2015’s Fantastic Four, is one of the worst comic book movie disasters in the last decade. And that’s including the likes of Morbius and Madame Web.

The milestone here is that with its current review score, Fantastic Four: First Steps has performed better than all three of the original Fantastic Four movies combined.

• Fantastic Four: First Steps – 86%
• Fantastic Four (2015) – 9%(!)
• Fantastic Four (2005) – 27%
• Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer – 37%

Add those up, and it’s a 73% total to that 86%. I was curious what it might look like if First Steps got all their box office totals combined, which would be:

• Fantastic Four (2015) – $167 million
• Fantastic Four (2005) – $333 million
• Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer – $301 million

That’s a total of $801 million. I mean, it’s not impossible? Granted, the last few Marvel movies have hovered more around $400-500 million hauls, but A) this is reviewing really well and seems bound to be a fan-favorite, and B) unlike say, Thunderbolts or a non-Steve Rogers Captain America, these are some of the most recognizable Marvel characters there are.

My gut tells me that Fantastic Four probably won’t hit $800 million in this current superhero climate. It should get close, but I’d be surprised if it crossed that, which would be almost double the most recent movies. Granted, we’ve seen things like Deadpool and Wolverine do over a billion recently, but I think you can understand the difference in terms of the history of both characters and their enduring appeal. The Fantastic Four may be fun and well-cast, but they’re still brand new to the MCU. Early projects for opening weekend are in, and have increased after positive reviews, but we’ll have to see how it performs over the long term.

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