Raphael Stevens

Disney and Marvel’s “Fantastic Four: First Steps” opened to an estimated $118 million at the domestic box office.
Internationally, the latest Marvel Cinematic Universe film snared an estimated $100 million, bringing its global weekend haul to $218 million.
“Fantastic Four: First Steps” has an 88% “Fresh” rating from review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.

(L-R): Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm/The Thing, Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm/Invisible Woman, Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic and Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm/Human Torch in Marvel’s “The Fantastic Four: First Steps.”

What superhero fatigue?
Twice in one month, a comic book film has rocketed to the top of the box office, debuting with more than $100 million in ticket sales.

Two weeks ago, it was “Superman,” the first theatrical release from James Gunn and Peter Safran as co-heads of DC Studios at Warner Bros. Discovery. This weekend, Disney and Marvel’s “Fantastic Four: First Steps” fueled an estimated $118 million in ticket sales during its first three days in theaters.
“The lesson is that if you build great movies, audiences will head to the multiplex,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore.
Internationally, “Fantastic Four: First Steps” snared an estimated $100 million, bringing its global weekend haul to $218 million.
“Marvel bet big releasing their long-awaited introduction of the Fantastic Four as the last MCU film to hit theaters for at least another year, and it’s paying off,” said Shawn Robbins, director of analytics at Fandango and founder of Box Office Theory. “The franchise has had its share of hiccups in recent years, but Marvel’s First Family is winning over fans and spurring the kind of enthusiasm that could bring back casual viewers who sat out some post-‘Endgame’ chapters.”
Marvel has struggled in the wake of the record-breaking “Avengers: Endgame,” the culmination of more than a decade of interconnected storytelling. While films like “Deadpool & Wolverine” and “Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3” enticed moviegoers to theaters, others like “Captain America: Brave New World,” “The Marvels” and “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” failed to drum up the same enthusiasm.

Box office hauls haven’t been the only hit-or-miss for the studio. Marvel films have experienced significant fluctuations since the release of 2019’s “Endgame.” Previously, no MCU film had a Rotten Tomatoes score below 67%, meaning each had earned the title of “Fresh,” indicating that critics had a generally positive view of the film.
Since then, five films from the franchise have been below that metric and three of those were considered “Rotten,” earning less than 50% positive reviews.
This year, “Captain America: Brave New World” tallied $413 million globally and earned a 48% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. But “Thunderbolts*” generated just $382 million globally — one of only five titles under the Marvel Cinematic Universe banner to tally less than $400 million worldwide — it secured an 88% “Fresh” rating.
Its newest theatrical entry, “Fantastic Four: First Steps,” also has an 88% “Fresh” rating from the site.
“For Disney, this has truly been a magical summer and for Marvel a reaffirmation that their strategy to revamp the brand is certainly working,” Dergarabedian said. “With ‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’ following in the footsteps of ‘Thunderbolts*’ Marvel is showing that a focus on quality rather than quantity is a recipe for success.”
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC. NBCUniversal owns Fandango and Rotten Tomatoes. More

Boeing has been on an upswing since CEO Kelly Ortberg took over the top job a year ago.
Wall Street analysts expect the aircraft manufacturer to halve its second-quarter losses from a year ago when it reports earnings this week.
But Ortberg still has challenges ahead of him, including with ramping up production of jets, which will require FAA approval, and in company’s defense unit.

FAA chief Steve Dickson flies a Boeing 737 MAX, from Boeing Field on September 30, 2020 in Seattle, Washington.
Mike Siegel | Getty Images

After spiraling from crisis to crisis over much of the past seven years, Boeing is stabilizing under CEO Kelly Ortberg’s leadership.
Ortberg, a longtime aerospace executive and an engineer whom the manufacturer plucked from retirement to fix the problem-addled company last year, is set this week to outline significant progress since he took the helm a year ago. Boeing reports quarterly results and gives its outlook on Tuesday.

So far, investors are liking what they’ve been seeing. Shares of the company are up more than 30% so far this year.
Wall Street analysts expect the aircraft manufacturer to halve its second-quarter losses from a year ago when it reports. Ortberg told investors in May that the manufacturer expects to generate cash in the second half of the year. Boeing’s aircraft production has increased, and its airplane deliveries just hit the highest level in 18 months.

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Boeing’s stock price.

It’s a shift for Boeing, whose successive leaders missed targets on aircraft delivery schedules, certifications, financial goals and culture changes that frustrated investors and customers alike, while rival Airbus pulled ahead.
“The general agreement is that the culture is changing after decades of self-inflicted knife wounds,” said Richard Aboulafia, managing director at AeroDynamic Advisory, an aerospace consulting firm.
Analysts expect the company to post its first annual profit since 2018 next year.

“When he got the job, I was not anywhere as near as optimistic as today,” said Douglas Harned, senior aerospace and defense analyst at Bernstein.

Kelly Ortberg speaks at the 14th annual U.S. Chamber Of Commerce Foundation Aviation Summit in downtown Washington, D.C.
Kris Tripplaar | SIPPL Sipa USA | AP

Ortberg’s work was already cut out for him, but the challenges multiplied when he arrived.
As the company hemorrhaged cash, Ortberg announced massive cost cuts, including laying off 10% of the company. Its machinists who make the majority of its airplanes went on strike for seven weeks until the company and the workers’ union signed a new labor deal. Ortberg also oversaw a more than $20 billion capital raise last fall, replaced the head of the defense unit and sold off its Jeppesen navigation business.
Ortberg bought a house in the Seattle area, where Boeing makes most of its planes, shortly after taking the job last August, and his presence has been positive, aerospace analysts have said.
“He’s showing up,” Aboulafia said. “You show up, you talk to people.”
Boeing declined to make Ortberg available for an interview.

Another turnaround

The Boeing Co. pavilion at the Paris Air Show in Paris, France, on Wednesday, June 18, 2025.
Nathan Laine | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Boeing’s leaders hoped for a turnaround year in 2024. But five days in, a door-plug blew out of a nearly new Boeing 737 Max 9 as it climbed out of Portland. The almost-catastrophe brought Boeing a production slowdown, renewed Federal Aviation Administration scrutiny and billions in cash burn.
Key bolts were left off the plane before it was delivered to Alaska Airlines. It was the latest in a series of quality problems at Boeing, where other defects have required time-consuming reworking.
Boeing had already been reeling from two deadly Max crashes in 2018 and 2019 that sullied the reputation of America’s largest exporter. The company in May reached an agreement with the Justice Department to avoid prosecution stemming from a battle over a previous criminal conspiracy charge tied to the crashes. Victims’ family members slammed the deal when it was announced.
For years, executives at top Boeing airline customers complained publicly about the manufacturer and its leadership as they grappled with delays. Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary told investors in May 2022 that management needed a “reboot or boot up the arse.”
Last week, O’Leary had a different tune.
“I continue to believe Kelly Ortberg, [and Boeing Commercial Airplane unit CEO] Stephanie Pope are doing a great job,” he said on an earnings call. “I mean, there is no doubt that the quality of what is being produced, the hulls in Wichita and the aircraft in Seattle has dramatically improved.”

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United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby cast doubt over the Boeing 737 Max 10 after the January 2024 door-plug accident, as the carrier prepared not to have that aircraft in its fleet plan. The plane is still not certified, but Kirby has said Boeing has been more predictability on airplane deliveries.
Still, delays for the Max 10, the largest of the Max family, and the yet-to-be certified Max 7, the smallest, are a headache for customers, especially since having too few or too many seats on a flight can determine profitability for airlines.
“They’re working the right problems. The consistency of deliveries is much better,” Southwest Airlines CEO Bob Jordan said in an interview last month. “But there’s no update on the Max 7. We’re assuming we are not flying it in 2026.”

Not out of the woods

Airplane fuselages bound for Boeing’s 737 Max production facility await shipment at Spirit AeroSystems headquarters in Wichita, Kansas, U.S. December 10, 2024. 
Nick Oxford | Reuters

Boeing under Ortberg still has much to fix.
The FAA capped Boeing’s production at 38 Maxes a month, a rate that it has reached. To go beyond that, to a target of 42, Boeing will need the FAA’s blessing.
Ortberg said this year that the company is stabilizing to go beyond that rate. Manufacturers get paid when aircraft are delivered, so higher production is key.

“I would suspect they would be having those discussions very soon,” Harned said. “It’s 47 [a month] that I think is the challenging break.”
He added that Boeing has a lot of inventory on hand to help increase production.
Its defense unit has also suffered. The defense unit encompasses programs like the KC-46 tanker program and Air Force One, which has drawn public ire from President Donald Trump. Trump, frustrated with delays on the two new jets meant to serve the president, turned to a used Qatari Boeing 747 to potentially use as a presidential aircraft, though insiders say that used plane could require months of reoutfitting.
Ortberg replaced the head of that unit last fall.
“They’re not totally out of the woods,” Harned said.
Boeing and Ortberg also need to start thinking about a new jet, some industry members said. Its best-selling 737 first debuted in 1967, and the company was looking at a midsize jetliner before the two crashes sent its attention elsewhere.
“Already there’s been a reversal from ‘read my lips, no new jet.’ I would like to see that accelerate,” Aboulafia said. “He is the guy to make that happen.” More

The end of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” is calling attention to the mounting pressures on traditional TV and raising questions about the whether the time slot can survive the evolving viewing landscape.
The cost of producing late night programs has risen as the media industry has been upended by streaming and shifting consumer habits.
Jimmy Kimmel’s contract with Disney is set to lapse in 2026.

A marquee featuring “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” is seen outside the Ed Sullivan Theater, where Colbert’s show is produced, in New York City on July 18, 2025.
Angela Weiss | AFP | Getty Images

There are two schools of thought around CBS’ decision to end “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”
The first says the cancellation is a one-off exit from the storied time slot — that Paramount was trying to push through the red tape to finally merge with Skydance Media, a deal that was approved by the Federal Communications Commission Thursday after more than a year in limbo.

The other says it signals the beginning of the end of late night TV.
The entertainment industry will have a better sense of where the truth lies next year when Disney decides the fate of Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show, “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”
While NBC recently extended the contracts of its two late night hosts, Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers, into 2028, Kimmel’s contract is set to lapse in 2026.
“Jimmy Kimmel Live” has been a late night staple since 2003, acting not only as a typical talk show on the circuit, but as a valuable marketing hub for Disney’s slate of theatrical and television content. In addition to traditional one-on-one interviews, Kimmel will also frequently host several stars from the same project, often for blockbuster titles from Marvel, Star Wars and the company’s animated franchises.
Clips from these chats are fed onto Kimmel’s YouTube channel, which has more than 20 million subscribers, and across social media, helping to generate buzz for upcoming Disney projects.

For comparison, Fallon’s show account has around 32 million subscribers, while Colbert’s stands at 10 million and Meyers’ at just over 5 million.
Kimmel is also a frequent host of the Academy Awards, which airs on Disney’s ABC, and is currently the host of ABC’s celebrity edition of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.” These ancillary assignments, as well as his annual job closing out Disney’s Upfronts presentation for advertisers, may make Kimmel more important to Disney’s long-term future than Colbert was for Paramount or CBS.
Still, while the next test of media’s commitment to late night is months off, the end of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” is calling attention to the mounting pressures on traditional TV and raising questions about the whether the time slot can survive the evolving viewing landscape.

Finances in focus

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert during Thursday’s July 17, 2025 show.
Scott Kowalchyk | CBS | Getty Images

The cost of producing late night programs has risen as the media industry has been upended by streaming and shifting consumer habits. The traditional pay TV bundle has lost millions of customers in recent years, and as they’ve disappeared, so too have advertising dollars.
The shifting equation has forced media companies to rebalance.
At a large scale, companies like Comcast’s NBCUniversal and Warner Bros. Discovery have opted to split off their cable TV networks into separate corporate entities.
At the programming level, big shows are increasingly greenlit for release on streaming services rather than traditional networks. Salaries of highly paid news anchors have moderated, with some stepping away from traditional networks entirely and starting out their own ventures. And much of the money spent on bulking up both linear TV networks and streaming services is earmarked for live sports.
That leaves familiar titles in flux.
“The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” employed around 200 people and recorded annual losses of around $40 million, according to a person familiar with the matter, who declined to be named speaking about nonpublic matters. “Jimmy Kimmel Live” employs around 250 people and loses roughly the same amount, according to a person familiar with that show’s finances.
While the pay-TV bundle still rakes in the highest share of profits for legacy media companies – much of which stems from the fees that pay-TV distributors hand over to the networks to be included in the bundle – that figure is in decline.
Linear TV advertising revenue has also been on a steady downward slope. Industry analysts and experts expected the ad market to stabilize in 2025 after tumultuous streaming-centric years, but macroeconomic uncertainty has hampered the recovery.
In quarterly earnings that were reported in May, Paramount, NBCUniversal and Disney each reported lower ad sales on a year-over-year basis.
Paramount reported in May that its first-quarter TV advertising revenue was down 21% to $2.04 billion, mainly due to comparisons to the prior-year period when the company had the Super Bowl. That championship beckons the most ad dollars of any live event on TV. Without the Super Bowl, ad revenue would have been flat, the company said. Overall revenue for Paramount’s TV segment was down 13%.
Of the traditional TV ad spend that does remain, the biggest share has gravitated to live sports, which draw the biggest audiences. NBCUniversal recently touted its record ad sales volume during the most recent Upfront cycle due to an upcoming slate of NBA, the Super Bowl, Winter Olympics and other sports.
Disney reported in May that quarterly revenue for its domestic linear networks was down 3% to $2.2 billion, attributing the decline to lower ad revenue. Still, Disney noted ad revenue for ESPN and sports in general saw an increase in ad revenue.

The late night landscape

On Tuesday, May 13, 2025 at North Javits in New York City, an incredible roster of all-star talent will tout their connections to storytelling, Disney, and each other while showcasing their latest projects for the upcoming year.
Michael Le Brecht | Disney General Entertainment Content | Getty Images

These headwinds help legitimize Paramount’s decision to cancel “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” but the timing of the program’s end has raised suspicions.
The announcement that Colbert’s show would take its final bow in May 2026 came just days after the tenured host publicly called out Paramount for its $16 million settlement with President Donald Trump over the editing of a “60 Minutes” interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris.
Colbert called the settlement a “big fat bribe” during one of his show-opening monologues, referencing the then-pending merger between Paramount and Skydance Media, which required the approval of the Trump administration to proceed.
Paramount and CBS executives released a statement last week saying the cancellation was “purely a financial decision against the challenging backdrop in late night.”
“It is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount,” the company continued.
While ratings for Colbert’s show have declined over the last decade, the program has consistently achieved the highest views of any show in the 11:35 p.m. hour, outdrawing ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live” and NBC’s “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” according to Nielsen.
Still, Colbert’s ratings have been declining each season. For the most recent September-to-May time period, Colbert averaged roughly 1.9 million viewers, with the majority of viewership coming in the age demographic of over 65, according to Nielsen — a telling data point about the state of TV viewership.
Kimmel’s viewership paints a similar picture, with viewership dropping from the September-to-May time period in 2019-2020 to the most recent in 2024-2025, when the average was nearly 1.6 million viewers, according to Nielsen.
When Paramount listed its slate of highly rated TV shows during its last earnings report, including “Tracker,” the top rated series and “Matlock,” the highest rated new series, it also listed Colbert’s “The Late Show” as the highest rated broadcast late night show. “The Daily Show,” also from Paramount, was the top late night show on cable TV.
Some industry experts have questioned whether CBS could have explored other ways to save money — or save late night — besides outright canceling “The Late Show.” NBC cut costs by eliminating the band on Meyers’ late night show and shifting Fallon to four nights a week instead of five.
CBS tried to bring a younger demographic into the hour with “After Midnight,” a late night show that ran after Colbert. The show was hosted by comedian Taylor Tomlinson and was centered on viral internet phenomena.
Though CBS intended to renew the show after its first two seasons, Tomlinson decided not to extend her contract, and the show was canceled.
Disclosure: Comcast owns NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC. More