First Steps is still Marvel’s best opening day of the year, with its recent releases not being as lucrative. February’s Captain America: Brave New World grossed around $88m (£65m) during its opening weekend, while May’s Thunderbolts* brought in around $74m (£55m).

The movie, the fifth effort to adapt the comic characters for the big screen, was expected to collect about $220 million worldwide in its first weekend.

SATURDAY UPDATE: Marvel / Disney ’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps is on its way towards a global opening of $220M-$230M, which would place it ahead of the pre-weekend projection. Through Friday, the Matt Shankman-directed F4:FS has grossed an estimated $106.2M worldwide.

First Steps director Matt Shakman has revealed what the cut sequence featuring John Malkovich's Red Ghost entailed, and explains why we're unlikely to ever see it officially released.

Pascal's seeming overnight success popped off in season 4 of Game of Thrones, in which he played the Dornish Prince Oberyn Martell, the "Red Viper," who meets a particularly gruesome demise, even by Westerosian standards.

On the sequence itself, the director added, "We had Red Ghost trying to steal a rocket ship with his apes, and Reed trying to defeat him and outwitting him. We see snippets of that in the [Ted Gilbert Show] montage, you see him kicking one of the apes in the water."

The movie is the latest from the Marvel Cinematic Universe and marks the third “Fantastic Four” film adaptation since 2005.

But there was a very simple way for the MCU to reboot its thirst traps in The Fantastic Four: First Steps. And Pedro Pascal didn't even need to go shirtless for it. He would have simply needed to unbutton a bit.

As the filmmaker’s three-year journey wound down on the project, he realized a key moment was missing, and managed to shoot it within a few months of the film's opening.

This iteration of the Fantastic Four has a standalone adventure without all the burden of the MCU's history and cast of characters.

First Steps director Matt Shakman has revealed what the cut sequence featuring John Malkovich's Red Ghost entailed, and explains why we're unlikely to ever see it officially released.