Which Fantastic Four Movie Has Delivered The Best Return On Budget – And Where Does First Steps Stand?

Ranking all Fantastic Four films by return on budget and showing where 2025’s First Steps stands among the franchise’s releases.

- September 23, 2025 | 5:29 PM IST

Which Fantastic Four Movie Has Delivered The Best Return On Budget (Photo Credit – Instagram/Hotstar)

2025’s last MCU film, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, has earned $520.6 million worldwide and is on the verge of concluding its ongoing theatrical run. Despite solid reviews from both critics and audiences, the latest Fantastic Four reboot didn’t perform at the box office as well as many fans had hoped. That said, the superhero movie currently ranks among the top ten highest-grossing titles of the year, ahead of its Marvel counterparts Captain America: Brave New World and Thunderbolts*.

Which Fantastic Four Movie Earned The Biggest Return On Budget?

Earlier, First Steps had already outgrossed all previous Fantastic Four films at the box office. Now, the question is: which Fantastic Four movie earned the highest return relative to its budget? And where does First Steps rank among them? Let’s break down the numbers.

Fantastic Four Films – Budget & Worldwide Earnings

Here are the budgets and worldwide earnings for every Fantastic Four movie listed in release order (according to Box Office Mojo data):

Fantastic Four (2005) – Budget: $100 Million | Worldwide Earnings: $333.5 Million
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007) – Budget: $130 Million | Worldwide Earnings: $301.9 Million
Fantastic Four (2015) – Budget: $120 Million | Worldwide Earnings: $167.9 Million
The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025) – Budget: $200 Million | Worldwide Earnings: $520.6 Million

Fantastic Four Films – Best Return On Budget

Based on the above budget and earnings data, here’s how the Fantastic Four films performed and rank in terms of earnings-to-budget ratios:

Fantastic Four (2005) – 3.3x
The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025) – 2.6x
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007) – 2.3x
Fantastic Four (2015) – 1.4x

As the figures show, the highest return relative to budget was achieved by the first Fantastic Four film, earning an impressive 3.3x its budget. Next in line is the latest reboot, First Steps, at 2.6x, followed by Rise of the Silver Surfer at 2.3x and the 2015 reboot at 1.4x. First Steps currently stands in second place, and it’s unlikely to change now that its theatrical run is nearly complete.

What’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps All About

Set against the backdrop of a 1960s-inspired retro-futuristic alternate universe, the story follows four brilliant young scientists—Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic (Pedro Pascal), Sue Storm/Invisible Woman (Vanessa Kirby), Johnny Storm/Human Torch (Joseph Quinn), and Ben Grimm/The Thing (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), who gain extraordinary powers after a cosmic experiment goes wrong.

When a powerful space god, Galactus (Ralph Ineson), and his herald, Silver Surfer (Julia Garner), threaten the existence of the entire planet, the newly formed Fantastic Four must rise to the occasion to save the world.