Suicide Squad set records for the best August Thursday ever ($20.5 million), the best August opening day ever ($65.5 million), as well as proving to be Will Smith’s biggest debut ever. Also, with an overseas haul of $132 million, the Squad’s $267.1 worldwide debut total topped Deadpool’s $264.7 bow, just as Suicide Squad’s $135.1 million domestic opening narrowly beat out Deadpool’s 3-day total of $134.2 million. The comparison with Deadpool is apt, because, though it is rated PG-13 rather than R, Suicide Squad attempts to channel the anarchic antihero mayhem that the Merc with a Mouth produces so effortlessly.
Does that mean that Suicide Squad will match or better Deadpool’s leggy domestic cumulative of $363 million? Don’t bet on it Fuzzy, a drop of 41% from Friday to Saturday night was a sign that the film might be front-loaded like Zack Snyder’s Batman v. Superman, which debuted with $166 million and finished with $330 million domestic--a multiplier of 1.99, the lowest ever for a film that opened over $100 million. The reviews for Suicide Squad are even worse than they were for Batman v. Superman (26% positive on Rotten Tomatoes for the Squad versus 27% for Batman v. Superman), and though the opening weekend audience CinemaScore for Suicide Squad was a B+ versus a B for Batman v. Superman, IMdB’s audience rating for the Squad is currently 7.1 versus 7.5 for Batman v. Superman.
The good news for Suicide Squad is that females made up a healthy 46% of the opening weekend audience, perhaps a sign of the interest in Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn (though the critics panned the movie, the actors, especially Will Smith, Jared Leto, and Robbie, generally received praise for their work), and women liked it better giving it 7.3, while males gave it a 6.9 according to IMdB. Warner Bros. marketing did a good job of delivering younger viewers with 54% of the opening weekend audience under 25 and 76% under 35—and younger viewers graded the movie slightly higher than their older counterparts.
Overall it was a nice win for Warner Bros. and DC, taking the August opening weekend record away from Disney and Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, but that big Saturday drop is unprecedented among superhero film smashes, with the lone exception of The Dark Knight Rises on the Saturday after the Aurora, Colorado massacre, which also resulted in a 41% Friday to Saturday decline. The big test will come next weekend when it will come clear if Suicide Squad can avoid the major (69%) drop that cut Batman v. Superman off at the knees.
With a production budget of $175 million, Suicide Squad has to do well in the domestic market. Yes, it did open very strongly around the world, but it appears very unlikely that David Ayer’s film, even though it was rated “PG-13” will even be released in China, which is now firmly the world’s second biggest cinema marketplace. Deadpool was never released in China (it was rated “R”) and finished well below a billion dollars worldwide. Even though Warner Bros. retitled the film “Special Task Force X” for Chinese audiences, the Chinese censors evidently did not like the movie, which is not on the schedule for the next two month.
Even though the studios take home less from the Chinese market than from other foreign venues, earnings can be huge (Zootopia earned $235.5 million, and Captain America: Civil War $190.4 million for Disney). So with its prospects truncated a bit overseas, Suicide Squad has to demonstrate some “legs” in the domestic market to insure profitability and to avoid another “black eye” for Warner Bros. and DC, who were burned by a record setting opening for Batman v. Superman that turned into a pile dust.
Second place this weekend went to Jason Bourne, which fell 62% in the face of direct competition from Suicide Squad as it earned $22.7 million to bring the domestic total for the Matt Damon-starring Ludlum adaptation to $103.4 million. In third place, the R-rated comedy Bad Moms, which debuted last week, did show some “legs,” dropping just 40% as it earned $14.2 million to bring its 10-day total to $51 million.
Speaking of “legs,” Illumination Entertainment’s The Secret Life of Pets continued its hot streak, dropping just 38.9% as it earned $11.6 million to bring its domestic total to a massive $319.6 million. The fifth spot went to Star Trek Beyond, which dropped 58.8% as it earned $10.2 million and brought its domestic total to $127.9 million.
The Kevin Spacey-turns-into-a-cat comedy 9 Lives, which received only a 4% positive rating from the critics, bombed as it earned just $6.5 million from 2,264 theaters. Perhaps this was not the right time to debut this quirky little film.
The horror movie Lights Out and the teen-friendly thriller Nerve both posted solid holds, and should prove to be moneymakers thanks to modest budgets. The same cannot be said for Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters, which fell to #9 in its fourth weekend of release as it earned $4.8 million to bring its domestic total to $116.7 million. With a production budget of $144 million and global earnings of $179.81 million (and only a few territories left in which to open), this Ghostbusters reboot is going to lose a lot of money for Sony.
Another film that underperformed in the domestic market is Ice Age: Collision Course, which took only 3 weekends to fall to #10 as it earned $4.3 million to bring its domestic total to $53.5 million. Though it is doing well overseas, this franchise has worn out its welcome in North America, where this installment will be lucky to earn $60 million.
Finally after 8 weekends, Pixars Finding Dory, still the #1 film of 2016, slipped out of the top 10 as it earned $2 million and brought its domestic total to $473.9 million.
Suicide Squad will have little new direct competition next weekend as a trio of new films opens including the reboot of Disney’s Pete’s Dragon, the R-rated animated feature Sausage Factory, and the Meryl Streep period comedy Florence Foster Jenkins.