FANTASTIC FOUR

Fantastic Four was co-financed by FOX and TSG Entertainment for $154.7 million and rebates brought the net budget down to $124.5 million.  Back in 2013 FOX set up a $400 million slate financing deal with Chip Selig, who created TSG Entertainment to replace Dune Capital, which had the same basic co-financing deal at FOX — TSG Entertainment would co-finance FOX films between a quarter of the costs and half of the costs, depending on the project.  Fantastic Four was a troubled production, with studio tinkering in post production, reshoots, reports of poor behavior on and off the set from the director Josh Trank, atrocious reviews and marketing material that could not even spin this mess into interesting 30 second ad spots — all became a perfect storm of widespread negativity that this property could not shake off.  A disparaging tweet by director Josh Trank (“A year ago I had a fantastic version of this. And it would’ve received great reviews. You’ll probably never see it. That’s reality though.”) released just before the film’s release, just added to the toxic buzz.

Fantastic Four was tracking a month before its release with about a $55 million opening, which lowered to a mid $40 million opening about a week before its release.  It opened against The Gift, Ricki and the Flash and Shaun the Sheep Movie and Fantastic Four came in way below expectations with $25,685,737 — placing #2 behind the holdover Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation.  Audiences gave the pic a hateful C- cinemascore and predictably, Fantastic Four declined a huge 68.2% in its second weekend to $8,168,756 and 54.3% in its third frame to $3,733,632.  The domestic run closed with $56,117,548.

Overseas, Fantastic Four pulled in a mild $111,860,048.  The worldwide cume was $167.9 and FOX would see back about $92.3 million after theaters take their percentage of the gross, which would almost cover just the P&A costs.  A China release date was to be announced, but nothing materialized.