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The Marvel Cinematic Universe’s latest release, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, hit theaters on July 25, earning $117.6 million in its opening weekend, as reported by Variety on August 3. According the same media outlet, the film’s box office revenue declined by 66 percent in its second weekend.
Political commentator and podcaster Matt Walsh has now reacted to the news of the viewership drop in his video posted on August 4. While taking a shot at The Fantastic Four: First Steps, he criticized the superhero movie genre altogether.
"Fantastic Four is lame. That's my point. And superhero movies in general are just not good films. And that's why the genre is dying, because these movies are shallow. They're repetitive. They're dull. Um, it's, you know, it's the same thing over and over again. There's no soul. There's no heart," Matt Walsh said.
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Matt Walsh added that while these movies still make hundreds of millions, that is not "impressive," considering their production and marketing costs. He further said:
"These are big-name IPs, you know, spending tens and hundreds of millions of dollars in production, hundreds more in marketing. Um, so when you're spending that kind of money, it's like it's not impressive to make 100 million, 200 million."
Particularly talking about the First Steps, he called the movie "lame" and mocked the powers of Mr. Fantastic, and again called his super stretchy powers "lame." He said that Marvel even made it "worse" by bringing Marvel's First Family squad into the same universe where other heroes of the MCU exist. He went on to say that the squad is "redundant" when there are other MCU heroes like Thor and Iron Man.
"Like, there's no reason why you would ever call the stretchy guy to come help you in a world where, you know, Thor exists, or Iron Man, or Captain America. And why do you need the big rock guy when you have the Hulk? These people exist like they're neighbors, right? They exist in the same world," Welsh opined.
Before concluding, Matt Walsh claimed that the franchise films are "terrible" because they start in the "corporate boardroom" instead of the "heart and soul" of an artist.
Matt Walsh criticized Fantastic Four months before its release
Earlier, in February, Matt Walsh gave his opinion on the then-upcoming movies in 2025. In his YouTube video uploaded on February 17, he criticized The Fantastic Four: First Steps while watching its trailer. He said that people don't need superhero movies anymore, as "we're well past capacity."
Citing past efforts related to the franchise, Walsh claimed that the movie "won't work" this time either. He called Marvel's First Family the "rough drafts" of superheroes. Matt Walsh said:
"They've tried several times to make Fantastic Four movies, and it never works, and now they're trying it again, and this won't work either, and the reason... The Fantastic Four are just lame... They were prototype superheroes, right? They first appeared in comic books. I don't know when, but I assume in the 50s or early 60s; they were rough drafts, they were not finished products, and they're just lame."
The Fantastic Four: First Steps was released on July 25, starring Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach. In the retro-futuristic movie, the squad of four superhumans fights a world-eating entity, Galactus, to save the world.
