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Felix Quinonez: I'm genuinely confused what happened here. I went in expecting Fantastic Four to be something on the level of Elektra but that wasn't the case at all. I found Fantastic Four to be genuinely entertaining and moving. There are glimpses of real greatness throughout but unfortunately it doesn't live up to it, which is genuinely disappointing. But it is nowhere near the disaster people are so excited to call it. I really believe that the non-stop bad buzz and headlines surrounding the production played a huge part in its terrible opening weekend. I think that the toxic buzz created a narrative around the movie's quality so most people already made up their minds before they saw a single frame. I also believe that people went in looking to tear it apart. They saw things that they might have otherwise overlooked, had they been in a more generous mood, as proof that the movie is as bad as they already convinced themselves it was.

But I think a lot of the blame should also be directed it at the studio. It seemed odd to me that they didn't ever really try to contain any of the bad buzz. Instead, they were super secretive, which many people, including me, found strange. So much time passed without them ever releasing any official photos and they held out way longer then studios usually do to release a teaser and trailer. It seemed like they could have done more to shut the haters up instead they didn't say anything and people took that as a confirmation of the movie being terrible. And Josh Trank pretty much coming out and disowning the movie the day before its release was the final nail in the coffin.

Ryan Kyle: Fantastic’s debut doesn’t need a recap, but an autopsy.

It’s interesting that when the film began, the announcement of Josh Trank at the helm (who infamously disowned the final cut on Twitter this weekend) and the casting of young talented actors instead of flavor-of-the-months was met with welcome by the general public. However, when the first footage was shown was when everything fell to shambles.

Audiences hated the final product as much as the director, as you can tell by its C- Cinemascore. To give you an idea how low that is, Pixels earned a B. Hell, even The Gallows managed a higher rating. The word struck fast, as Friday-to-Saturday had a painful 25% drop.

The original incarnation of Fantastic Four grossed $56 million in its opening weekend or about $71 million adjusted for a decade later. 2015’s version will be lucky if it can even cross that line. Overseas might be able to help heal the sting a bit, but none of the cast holds much cache outside of the U.S. so the only sell for the film in those countries will be the much derided visual effects.

Now it’s a waiting game to see how fast Fox erases that summer 2017 date they had penciled in for the sequel. Alas, the studio can take solace in their strong looking fall/winter line-up.

Edwin Davies: The short answer to the question would probably be "basically everything," because seemingly every step of the process turned into a stumble. The production started with a series of strong creative choices: promising young filmmaker who had helmed an acclaimed movie; cast of good actors who aren't marquee names but certainly have some buzz around them; an approach to the material that delineated it from the previous incarnations, which were pretty indifferently received. Along the way, Fox and the producers appeared to lose confidence in Trank and started taking control, in the end making the film something of a mess.

However, a lot of films go through similarly difficult productions and end up being hits. World War Z didn't have the smoothest journey to the screen and its problems were no better hidden than Fantastic Four's were, yet it opened to more than $50 million and finished as a solid win for Paramount. The same is also true of Ant-Man, which went through a similarly difficult production and looks like it will make out okay.

In trying to determine why Fantastic Four ultimately failed, I think that it comes down to a basic assumption on the part of Fox that turned out to be dead wrong. They assumed that audiences were interested in the Fantastic Four, when they are not. Despite being an iconic group and one of the founders of the Marvel brand, they have been eclipsed by Spider-Man, the X-Men, Captain America, and probably even Ant-Man at this point. The name doesn't mean much to most people, and if it does, it's probably associated with films that most people didn't care for. There was a degree of indifference to the film from the start that would only have been overcome if the reviews and word-of-mouth were strong. Those were the factors that ultimately saved Ant-Man, but they were not in place for Fantastic Four. People who might have been on the fence prior to the word getting out decided to hop right off of it and go and see Rogue Nation instead.

Michael Lynderey: When The A-Team opened to $25 million in June 2010, I said that I didn't even think a summer blockbuster action film of that type could open that low, and now Fantastic Four reignites that sentiment exactly. This is almost a worst-case scenario opening, for a film that became this summer's whipping boy for the media, critics, and, ultimately, and inevitably, audiences. We've had many films this summer that likely put an end to their franchises (Ted, Magic Mike, and possibly, for the time being, Terminator). What fate awaits the Fantastic Four is unclear to me, but when we see the team next I think they'll look very different.

By the way, unless Straight Outta Compton (or, uh, Grandma) do it, this August will not have a single film gross over $100 million. The last August not to have a single $100 million grosser was 2000. I've been wondering if that would ever happen again, and it looks like it just might, given what has transpired with Fantastic Four.

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