“The Fantastic Four: First Steps” achieved a truly heroic feat over the weekend, snapping an unprecedented cold streak for Marvel Studios.

The comic book adventure, starring Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Joseph Quinn as the titular quartet, lifted off to $118 million domestically and $218 million globally — the year’s first Marvel movie to open above $100 million. “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” appears to be the studio’s first successful attempt in post-pandemic times to launch a new superhero team following previous strikeouts such as this May’s “Thunderbolts*,” 2023’s “The Marvels” and 2021’s “Eternals.”

Marvel, which has been wildly inconsistent after spending a decade as Hollywood’s most reliable hitmaker, used to thrive on the unfamiliar. Iron Man, Thor and the Guardians of the Galaxy weren’t A-list characters until producer Kevin Feige began to assemble a cinematic universe in the early aughts. But since the COVID, the studio has only prospered with entries led by familiar properties such as “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” “Deadpool & Wolverine” and “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.”

“The Fantastic Four: First Steps,” which cost above $200 million to produce, needs serious staying power — strong reviews and great word-of-mouth will help — to avoid the fate of other recent Marvel movies like February’s “Captain America: Brave New World” ($100 million debut over four days) and 2023’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” ($106 million debut), which cratered at the box office after strong starts. Then there’s “Thunderbolts*,” which critics and audiences actually liked but still ended up as one of the lowest-grossing installments in Marvel’s 37-film franchise.

Though Marvel is still working to rebuild enthusiasm for its sprawling universe, the studio’s good fortunes will at least extend through the next two years. That’s because the next three MCU films — 2026’s “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” and “Avengers: Doomsday” and 2027’s “Avengers: Secret Wars” — are heavy hitters.

Here, Variety unpacks four reasons that “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” connected in its opening weekend — and why the tentpole should remain a box office force.

Audiences are tired of bad movies, not superhero stories

Though last year’s “Deadpool & Wolverine” was a massive, billion-dollar hit, Marvel’s two prior movies, “Captain America: Brave New World” and “Thunderbolts*,” were major money losers — and analysts were wondering whether “superhero fatigue” was to blame. However, “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” landed in the wake of another major comic book adaptation, Warner Bros. and DC’s “Superman,” and still managed a debut above $100 million. The back-to-back wins of “The Fantastic Four” and “Superman” indicate that audiences are willing to show up for comic book adventures as long as the onscreen action is watchable.

After all, “Captain America: Brave New World” and other Marvel misfires were poorly reviewed. (Although “Thunderbolts*” was considered a step up in terms of critical reception, moviegoers were mostly unfamiliar with those characters.) In a refreshing change of pace for the MCU, opening weekend crowds were enthusiastic about “The Fantastic Four: First Steps,” which earned an “A-” on CinemaScore exit polls. It’s the same grade as “Superman” — and that film has remained a draw in subsequent weeks with $289 million domestically and $509 million globally. Quality is king.

‘No homework required’

Over the course of 10 years, Marvel achieved something remarkable by weaving together 24 films to build to one epic conclusion, 2019’s record-obliterating “Avengers: Endgame.” Then, Marvel seemingly dared the average moviegoer to keep up. In addition to the regular pace of three to four theatrical movies a year, the studio started to unload dozens of interconnected television shows with tangled storylines and too many characters to keep straight. Forget the average moviegoer, it was a lot to ask of Marvel devotees. Seriously, try watching “The Marvels” or “Thunderbolts*” without having seen “Black Widow,” “Ms. Marvel,” “The Falcon and Winter Soldier,” “WandaVision” or “Ant-Man and the Wasp.” We dare you!

So what a relief that “The Fantastic Four” didn’t require a single bit of prior knowledge about Galactus, Silver Surfer or the inhabitants of Earth-828. As part of the marketing blitz, Disney and Feige were keen on making sure nobody felt excluded, emphasizing that “First Steps” shouldn’t be intimidating to casual Marvel fans.

“It’s a no-homework-required movie,” Feige recently told a room of reporters. “It literally is not connected to anything we’ve made before.”

Good, because we hate homework.

Not famous but familiar

Hollywood has failed several times to bring Marvel’s first family — as the Fantastic Four are colloquially known — to the big screen, most notably with 2005’s “Fantastic Four” and 2007’s sequel “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer” starring Chris Evans and Jessica Alba, as well as 2015’s reboot with Miles Teller, Kate Mara and Michael B. Jordan. (Although the first two efforts were decent box office performers, all three were critically reviled). Those movies were produced by 20th Century Fox, which licensed the mutant characters prior to the studio’s 2019 merger with Disney.

So although the foursome of Mister Fantastic (Pascal), Invisible Woman (Kirby), The Thing (Moss-Bachrach) and Human Torch (Quinn) are new to the Avengers, it helps in terms of awareness that they aren’t completely unrecognizable to the moviegoing masses. Even if you don’t know their government names — that’s Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Ben Grimm and Johnny Storm to you — you’ve likely heard of the Fantastic Four. That’s more than we can say about Yelena Belova, Sentry, Taskmaster and Red Guardian.

Not a drop of competition

For better or worse, “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” is the final major blockbuster of this summer’s movie season. Though Hollywood has several potential sleeper hits on the calendar in August — such as Zach Cregger’s “Weapons,” Disney’s “Freakier Friday” and Paramount’s “Naked Gun” reboot — there’s truly nothing on horizon in terms of all-audience tentpoles. It’s not until the fall, when Disney’s “Tron: Ares” is scheduled for Oct. 10, that a potential four-quadrant film will land on movie theater marquees. While that’s less than fantastic for theater operators, “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” has free reign over the box office through the dog days of summer.

Then on the comic book front, there’s a long 11-month stretch until the DC adaptation “Supergirl” touches down next June, followed by Marvel’s “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” in July. Leave ’em wanting more?