Marvel Studios’ The Fantastic Four: First Steps has reportedly set a new high-water mark for 2025 advance ticket sales on Fandango, topping the first-day pre-sale numbers of all other titles released this year.
According to a press release from the ticketing service, the film outpaced A Minecraft Movie, Lilo & Stitch, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, and Jurassic World: Rebirth in early demand.
A screenshot from A Minecraft Movie – YouTube, Warner Bros.
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Jerramy Hainline, Executive Vice President at Fandango, commented on the film’s performance.
Isn’t this Fantastic?
Marvel’s #TheFantasticFour First Steps sold more tickets in its first day than any other film this year. Do you have your tickets yet?https://t.co/MtJ2iCA1hk pic.twitter.com/M60wRf8MJI
— Fandango (@Fandango) June 5, 2025
“The Fantastic Four: First Steps marks an exciting new chapter for one of Marvel’s most iconic teams,” he said. “Early ticket sales show fans are eager to see these characters reimagined for a new generation.”
Strong Start, but History Tempers Expectations
While this marks the highest first-day performance for any 2025 title on Fandango, it’s important to note that these numbers reflect only a portion of the total advance sales market. Fandango represents one segment of the domestic ticketing landscape and does not account for global pre-orders or walk-up audiences.
Additionally, strong openings are not always indicative of box office success. In recent years, Marvel titles with impressive early ticket demand (like Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania) opened well but suffered steep drop-offs due to negative word of mouth or tepid audience reception.
Jonathan Majors as Kang The Conqueror in Marvel Studios‘ ANT-MAN AND THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. © 2023 MARVEL.
Quantumania opened to $106 million domestically, marking the best opening of the Ant-Man series. However, it experienced a significant 69% drop in its second weekend, the largest second-week domestic drop-off of any Marvel Cinematic Universe film at the time.
Even so, The Fantastic Four: First Steps appears to have outpaced the initial ticket sales of films that went on to do significant business. Lilo & Stitch has thus far earned $632.6 million worldwide to date, while A Minecraft Movie is closing in on the $950 million mark.
Notably, no American film has yet crossed the billion-dollar threshold in 2025.
Doubts Emerge Over Reported Ticketing “Crashes”
In the hours following the release of Fantastic Four ticket sales, several entertainment news accounts and influencer pages claimed that ticketing websites were experiencing outages due to overwhelming demand. However, that narrative has been met with skepticism by some analysts and online observers.
The cast of Fantastic Four: First Steps – YouTube, Marvel Entertainment
A report from Matt McGloin of Cosmic Book News questioned the validity of the “crashing” claims, noting that most major ticketing sites remained operational during the alleged spike in demand.
“Fantastic Four tickets are now on sale, with a tweet going viral on X that, due to high demand, ticket sites have been crashing,” McGloin wrote. “However, when actually checking ticket sites and sales, it reveals the sites are up and running fine, and that in reality, not a lot of Fantastic Four tickets have been sold (yet?).”
Demand for ‘FANTASTIC FOUR’ tickets is causing theater websites and apps to crash pic.twitter.com/5QDgLmBrbc
— ScreenTime (@screentime) June 4, 2025
The viral post cited by multiple users came from an account that had previously pushed questionable casting rumors involving The Legend of Zelda live-action film which That Park Place exclusively debunked. That same post was later appended with a community note on X clarifying that, “Ticket sites are not crashing and are running just fine,” according to Cosmic Book News.
While some users pointed to minor outages on platforms like AMC’s ticketing app as evidence of high traffic, Cosmic Book News noted that outage tracking tools such as Down Detector showed only 12 incident reports. That’s insufficient, they argue, to prove mass disruptions.
People are citing downdetector as proof the movie websites went down because of Fantastic Four ticket sales. However, it shows only 12 people reported it (doesn’t actually mean they went down), which could be from the Marvel shills hoping to create fake hype. Nice try. Welcome to… pic.twitter.com/23MTNetFM3
— Cosmic Book News (@cosmicbooknews) June 5, 2025
The site also reported that tickets for early showings remained widely available, with some users confirming that they were among the first few buyers for standard Thursday screenings.
The outlet further speculated that the viral claims may have been part of an effort to generate artificial urgency or “FOMO” around ticket sales, though no direct evidence has been presented to support that theory.
AMC app crashing? LOL. AMC is also offering 20% discount for the first 2pm showing. 🥸 pic.twitter.com/0EvjYUhQku
— Cosmic Book News (@cosmicbooknews) June 4, 2025
At present, it remains unclear whether the broader media will continue to validate or challenge the “crashed ticket site” narrative as more concrete sales data is released. Box office forecasting for The Fantastic Four: First Steps is expected to begin once tracking firms publish early projections later this month.
A Larger Test Lies Ahead
Warner Bros. and DC’s Superman reboot, directed by James Gunn, is set to begin ticket sales next week.
David Corenswet as Superman flying in James Gunn’s “Superman” – YouTube, DC
With both films debuting in close proximity, their respective box office performance will likely be closely compared. Industry observers will be watching to see if The Fantastic Four: First Steps can maintain momentum in ticket sales beyond this reportedly strong start.
Do you believe this report from Fandango about Fantastic Four ticket sales? Sound off in the comments and let us know.
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Wouldn’t it be fun if the ticket portals in question sued the “journalists” in question for libel? For falsely claiming unreliability of their portals and services and causing reputational damage among millions of their customers?
Yes. Yes, I think it would be fun.
You know, if the reports that the site was crashing for people trying to buy Superman tickets are true, then unreliable Web sites might actually be the reason for the crashes.
Maybe there was a glitch, and some Marvel stans just assumed it was because of high demand rather than bad Web design.
So F4 is the winning the race for best selling movie in one of the worst movie years (in dollars and quality) in modern history – at least till now? I wouldn’t consider that a feather in my cap…
Marvel would, because they’ll use an excuse, no matter how insignificant, to claim success.
They’re trying their hardest to manufacture hype for this movie. But all of it will mean nothing once the real box office numbers start rolling in.