Between Covid, the strikes, and the rise of VOD and especially streaming services, the cinema industry has been significantly altered. It's _possible_ all those kids that still go to movies for animated movies _might_ go back to the theatres as adults, but if they do, that's years down the line.
So if we look at just the post-covid DOMESTIC numbers for Marvel and DC, the results tend to clump into three bands:
Movies that start at $180M+ and end above $400M, which were profitable (barring covid / strike shutdown costs applying to the movie).
Middleground movies that started around $120M and ended well above $300M, and were mildly profitable, but not so that the studios are rushing sequels into production.
The also-rans, which made $100M or less to start and barely topped $200M. If they were profitable, it was only because of outside factors like heavy tax breaks. Odds are we won't see a direct sequel to any of these movies, barring 'rehabilitation' in a team-up movie like (possibly) Shang-Chi.
Again, if you look at the multipliers, they tend to match the relative general audience view of the movie - the one exception being some afterthoughts starring minority leads, which legitimately do get better multipliers than usual (Blue Beetle's 2.9, Aquaman's 4.5!), but the initial values are so weak it doesn't move the needle.
At this point I think Superman clearly belongs in the middlegound tier, though we'll see where it ends up below or between Thor 4 and GotG 3.
As to Fantastic Four? I just don't see it, but all the box office tracking suggests it will indeed open above Cap Falcon. I think we're looking at another Dr Strange 2 or Ant-Man 3, which fade hard after the initial week. As much as I think the 60s setting scares off the kids, box office takes don't care about demographics, and there could be a bunch of oldsters buying tickets the first weekend then a graveyard after. Cue 'Marvel in trouble? FF4's third week falls behind Superman's fifth week' articles in Variety or Deadline now.
