James Gunn’s much ballyhooed reimagining of The Suicide Squad was unleashed at the North American box-office over the weekend where it underwhelmed with a below-par opening of $26.5M from 4,002 theatres.
The $185M DC antihero blockbuster holds a 92% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and was received favourably by audiences, but it failed to match the debut of Birds of Prey ($33M) or even take that much more than Wonder Woman 1984 ($16.7M), which was released when pandemic restrictions meant that only 35% of theatres were open. It seems as though the heavily marketed film couldn’t quite detach the casual filmgoer from associations with David Ayer’s 2016 Suicide Squad, which was critically lambasted, but still opened to a staggering $133M domestic.
There are mitigating circumstances though, with the Delta variant having a resurgence across the country, and the film being readily available to HBO Max subscribers, although we’ll have to wait and see how much of an uptick the streaming service received from the film.
In better news for Warner Bros., their coffers were stuffed a bit more thanks to the overseas territories, where The Suicide Squad generated $35M for a global cume of $72.2M.
SEE ALSO: Read our review of The Suicide Squad here
Only time will tell if this one has legs at the box-office, or if it’s going to be a quick death for Gunn’s gang. Let us know what you think by heading to our social channels @FlickeringMyth…
Welcome to hell—a.k.a. Belle Reve, the prison with the highest mortality rate in the US of A. Where the worst Super-Villains are kept and where they will do anything to get out—even join the super-secret, super-shady Task Force X. Today’s do-or-die assignment? Assemble a collection of cons, including Bloodsport, Peacemaker, Captain Boomerang, Ratcatcher 2, Savant, King Shark, Blackguard, Javelin and everyone’s favorite psycho, Harley Quinn. Then arm them heavily and drop them (literally) on the remote, enemy-infused island of Corto Maltese. Trekking through a jungle teeming with militant adversaries and guerrilla forces at every turn, the Squad is on a search-and-destroy mission with only Colonel Rick Flag on the ground to make them behave…and Amanda Waller’s government techies in their ears, tracking their every movement. And as always, one wrong move and they’re dead (whether at the hands of their opponents, a teammate, or Waller herself). If anyone’s laying down bets, the smart money is against them—all of them.
The Suicide Squad is in all good cinemas, and a few rubbish ones, right now!