‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’ lights up UK-Ireland box office with £6.1m opening weekend; ‘The Bad Guys 2’ starts in third

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The Fantastic Four: First Steps made a strong start at the UK-Ireland box office with a £6.1m opening weekend – the biggest for a Fantastic Four title by £2m.

Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) title took a £9,173 average from 665 sites. Having opened on Thursday, July 24, the film has £8.1m in total.

While only the 24^th -biggest opening of 35 MCU films to date, First Steps  has the biggest opening for a film focused on new characters in the franchise since before the pandemic, when Captain Marvel  started with a huge £12.8m.

Black Widow  (£4.6m), Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings  (£5.8m), Eternals (£5.5m), The Marvels (£3.5m) and Thunderbolts* (£5m) have all failed to start at such heights since then.

Comic book superheroes dominated the top of the chart, with Warner Bros Superman dropping to second place on its third weekend. The DC Comics reboot added £1.9m – a sizeable 61% drop that brought it to £21.4m total. It may still catch the £30m of 2013’s Man Of Steel; although the £36.6m of 2016’s Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice is likely beyond it. 

Universal opened family animation The Bad Guys 2 to £1.6m from 642 sites, at a £2,553 average. This was 4% up on the £1.57m start of 2022’s The Bad Guys, which had a marginally lower site average of £2,538 from 617 sites.

Jurassic World Rebirth, a Universal stablemate, added £1.58m on its fourth session – a 52% drop that brought it to £28.8m total. It is currently the fifth-highest-grossing in the seven-film Jurassic Park franchise, with the £35.1m of 2022’s Jurassic World: Dominion, the next title ahead of it, now likely out of reach.

Warner Bros’ F1: The Movie  rounded out the top five with a £649,942 session – a 48% drop across its fifth weekend, that brings it to £19.7m.

Takings for the top five rose 2% on last weekend; but are down 38% on the equivalent weekend from last year, when Deadpool & Wolverine boosted takings. After a strong first half to the year, July has been a tougher month for UK-Ireland cinemas, which will hope Paramount’s The Naked Gun reboot can raise a smile next weekend.

Saiyaara surges

Indian romance Saiyaara posted an astonishing 161% increase on its second weekend, with £506,773 for Yash Raj Films almost enough to break into the top five. Mohit Suri’s film stars Ahaan Panday and Aneet Padda as a couple navigating life and love; the film has over £1m in the bank already, an impressive figure for a film not in the English language.

Smurfs leads Paramount’s slate, despite dropping 60% on its second weekend with £481,000 taking it to £2.8m total.

I Know What You Did Last Summer  added £377,282 on its second weekend – a 60% drop that brought the Sony horror to just shy of £2m, tracking behind the £4.4m of the original 1997 film.

Universal live-action title How To Train Your Dragon added £299,397 on its seventh weekend – a 57% drop that brought it to £21.4m, behind only the £27.6m of 2014’s animated How To Train Your Dragon 2 in the franchise.

Sony’s zombie film 28 Years Later added £174,816 on its sixth weekend – a 60% drop that brought it to £15.2m, above genre comparisons such as 2004’s Van Helsing  (£15.1m) and 1999’s The Blair Witch Project (£15.1m).

Disney animation Elio added £103,000 on its sixth weekend – a 66% drop that brought it to £4.5m total.

Warner Bros re-released 1985 comedy The Goonies to £96,737 from 253 sites at a £382 average, ahead of the £61,403 start for the previous re-release in 2019.

Paramount comedy Friendship starring Tim Robinson and Paul Rudd added £71,000 on its second session – a 61% drop that brought it to £400,000 total.

Disney’s Lilo & Stitch put on £70,000 on its 10^th weekend in cinemas – a 64% drop that brought it to £36.7m total.

On a weekend when many holdovers suffered drops of over 50%, Universal comedy The Ballad of Wallis Island continued its strong performance, dropping just 39% with £44,776 taking it to £2.1m total.

Opening on just 40 screens, Curzon’s Amadeus re-release started with a decent £40,619. The £1,128 opening screen average was the second highest of 2025 for Curzon, after Flow; Amadeus has £46,645 in total.

Irish romance Four Letters Of Love put on £31,190 on its second session for Vertigo Releasing, and has £151,661 in total.

Concert film Roger Waters This Is Not A Drill: Live From Prague took £28,354 for Trafalgar Releasing, and has a cume of £78,986 including midweek screenings.

Park Circus’s re-release of Stanley Kubrick’s 1975 epic Barry Lyndon added £19,842 on its second session, and has £139,575 in total.

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is approaching the end of its run after 10 weekends, with £14,000 on its latest session bringing it to £26.2m total, just shy of the £26.6m of 2023’s Dead Reckoning – Part One.

Matthias Glasner’s Berlinale title Dying started with £11,000 from 32 cinemas at a £344 average for Picturehouse Entertainment, and has £16,000 including previews.

Jujutsu Kaisen: Hidden Inventory / Premature Death, the latest Sony anime release, started with a £5,361 weekend, and has £74,539 including its midweek showings.

Peter MacJob’s Nigerian drama Ireke: Rise of the Maroons opened to £3,735 from 14 sites for Buff Studios at a £267 average.

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