How did Suicide Squad achieve while Ghostbusters failed ?

[SUPERECWFAN1]

This wasn't supposed to happen. Last year when the talk of Ghostbusters and Suicide Squad was supposed to happen , the big joke was how bad Suicide Squad would seemingly bomb for DC. The film had some much angered versions online of the new Joker and Harley Quinn. People ripped into DC and Warners for the new versions of those classic characters. The rest of the lineup was this ...




It had folks say , this is gonna be pretty bad. Also the fact Warners seemed to back away from the cheap projected Suicide Squad film that was proposed for $50-60 million , threw down a huge gauntlet and said ....lets double that nearly. Lets bring in Will Smith and Margot Robbie. Smith's salary alone was pretty big and he did this one. Also the fact that his film career had been in a funk the last few years. He's not had a film do over $200 million US domestic since 2008 (Hancock). He's not had a $100 million dollar film since 2012 (MIB 3).

So you had a big star like Smith who hadn't had a big box office film in years and Margot Robbie who is now slowly catching on. Tom Hardy passed on the film and rejected the role of Rick Flagg as did one other actor. The film was forced to cast Joel Kinnamen in that role. Himself not a big star yet. They had cast Jared Leto who had gotten huge praise for his role in Dallas Buyers Club. But by any indication this was a cast headlined by a failing star in Will Smith. With characters not many knew.

WB's 1st attempt at a PR campaign seemed to be insanely serious and boring. The 1st trailer was a colossal blunder as the serious music and more didn't seem to help the film. It was like they were dropping the ball before the film would arrive. But then Warners saw this and in January came in with a new plan. They looked at what Fox was building with Deadpool and decided ...we have that with Harley Quinn. So the film was redone in a new trailer (with rumored new reshoots to play up more fun in the film).



To say it stunned people would be an understatement. The 2nd trailer became an utter classic one with a focus on Harley , Deadshot , and Joker. The idea was , we have to sell this film on fun. And it accomplished the mission. In fact Suicide Squad #2 trailer has an unbelievable if you check 30,000+ likes to only 620 dislikes ratio. Which seemed to set the stage for the film to do what it would months later.

Meanwhile Sony was fresh into rebooting the Ghostbusters franchise. A franchise that had spawned toys , cartoons , video games and 2 prior films. The budget was cheaper and they actually lowered it to try and get the film to be a success. They also cast 2 hot actresses who were growing in films with Melissa McCarthy who had came off a string of $100-$200 million dollar films in the United States and Kristen Wiig who was starting to ascend.

It also had a built in audience that would have latched to it quick with Ghostbusters audience and the female demographic it was targeting. In fact the teaser poster seemed to play up how this was gonna be like the 1984 film in a sense with women involved. And how it could possibly be good.

http://movies.upcomingdate.com/wp-co...vie-Poster.jpg

But while Sony started off with something positive and Warners didn't , the roles quickly reversed. Sony watched as online a story leaked that the script was absolute **** and that McCarthy feared the film would do terrible and hurt her film career possibly. The script would later be leaked and it was considered to be pretty bad.

Then in March , Sony released the 1st trailer. And that is when things started to fall apart pretty damn quick. The trailer was so terrible , it has over 1+ million dislikes , it seemed to prove how bad this film would be. As the damage was going on Sony its claimed started deleting actual legit critiques of why the trailer was terrible and what needed fixed. Instead they kept the more insane comments about women and more. Deciding to do a costly dumb marketing campaign that would spell disaster in the weeks ahead.

Where as Warners decided to market Suicide Squad as fun film in the vein of Deadpool to make money , Sony decided that ...no this film isn't fun. Its a political statement. Yes folks , Sony decided that an Us v Them campaign was the way to go. That while there is a small audience of trolls who are misogynists and sexists , Sony felt that if they convinced folks that if there was a majority of these people they could get women behind the film. Forgetting that a good fraction of the anger at the 1st trailer was from older audience they needed , Sony went ahead by doing this marketing stance for weeks.

In this time Sony had its director and stars do interviews painting folks against the film as being horrible and that the older audience was misogynists. Also they were lonely and needed a husband or friend (McCarthy). The statements got more dumb as time came and the 2nd trailer just wasn't as good either. Sony started ramping up merch with toys and a video game.

But as sales of the video game and toys was terrible , Sony seemed to realize they had majorly fucked up. They had alienated the core audience they needed for the film. Instead of a fun comedic film they could have marketed ala Warners , in a month they shifted gears. As projections was the film would open between $31-50 million. Sony was playing catch up , by promoting at the NBA Finals with Kobe Bryant and the Papa Johns ad. A last second ditch attempt to get males into the theater on opening weekend.



This is where reality for both films entered. Where as Warners is now celebrating their costly gamble paying off (the film made nearly 80% of its production budget back opening weekend) , Sony had to watch as Ghostbusters made only a quarter of its production budget back and is now crawling along. Also the fact the film will not be opening in China and its a blow.

Sony meanwhile crowed over its opening and proclaimed they had relaunched a franchise , a fact that people are doing a ....wtf ? As the numbers prove they haven't and pretty much they are to blame for the failure of this franchise from taking off. Meanwhile Warners has launched a new property ...a costly one they gambled on and just opened at $131+ million outside the United States. Double the amount Ghostbusters has done outside the Domestic market.


So what failed for Sony ? It likely is the marketing campaign as I posted earlier. Warners saw a failed marketing campaign last summer , went back to the table and decided to focus on what Fox had done with Deadpool and applied it to their 2nd trailer. Meanwhile Sony learned absolutely NOTHING . Doubled down on a political statement , lost the audience they were supposedly targeting and then didn't get the female demographic they were supposedly after.

Instead of promoting a fun comedic film , Sony felt controversy and being discussed in national media for it was somehow gonna translate to ticket sales. They found out it didn't. They now have to sit and watch as a more costly gamble paid off , while the franchise that was a license to print money they boggled in epic fashion.

Suicide Squad could have been here . We could be saying it would bomb had Warners not changed course with marketing as we saw. So its a tale of 2 films and what 2 different studios did . One did right , the other did wrong.

[Charlie Rock]

When you give away a free ticket to every T-Mobile customer it kinda has an effect.

[Ace Venom]

I'd say you hit the nail on the head with this one. At the very least, Sony did not have a Fan4stic level bomb. Critics seemed to enjoy Ghostbusters (2016) more than Suicide Squad.

[inisideguy]

This wasn't supposed to happen. Last year when the talk of Ghostbusters and Suicide Squad was supposed to happen , the big joke was how bad Suicide Squad would seemingly bomb for DC. The film had some much angered versions online of the new Joker and Harley Quinn. People ripped into DC and Warners for the new versions of those classic characters. The rest of the lineup was this ...




It had folks say , this is gonna be pretty bad. Also the fact Warners seemed to back away from the cheap projected Suicide Squad film that was proposed for $50-60 million , threw down a huge gauntlet and said ....lets double that nearly. Lets bring in Will Smith and Margot Robbie. Smith's salary alone was pretty big and he did this one. Also the fact that his film career had been in a funk the last few years. He's not had a film do over $200 million US domestic since 2008 (Hancock). He's not had a $100 million dollar film since 2012 (MIB 3).

So you had a big star like Smith who hadn't had a big box office film in years and Margot Robbie who is now slowly catching on. Tom Hardy passed on the film and rejected the role of Rick Flagg as did one other actor. The film was forced to cast Joel Kinnamen in that role. Himself not a big star yet. They had cast Jared Leto who had gotten huge praise for his role in Dallas Buyers Club. But by any indication this was a cast headlined by a failing star in Will Smith. With characters not many knew.

WB's 1st attempt at a PR campaign seemed to be insanely serious and boring. The 1st trailer was a colossal blunder as the serious music and more didn't seem to help the film. It was like they were dropping the ball before the film would arrive. But then Warners saw this and in January came in with a new plan. They looked at what Fox was building with Deadpool and decided ...we have that with Harley Quinn. So the film was redone in a new trailer (with rumored new reshoots to play up more fun in the film).



To say it stunned people would be an understatement. The 2nd trailer became an utter classic one with a focus on Harley , Deadshot , and Joker. The idea was , we have to sell this film on fun. And it accomplished the mission. In fact Suicide Squad #2 trailer has an unbelievable if you check 30,000+ likes to only 620 dislikes ratio. Which seemed to set the stage for the film to do what it would months later.

Meanwhile Sony was fresh into rebooting the Ghostbusters franchise. A franchise that had spawned toys , cartoons , video games and 2 prior films. The budget was cheaper and they actually lowered it to try and get the film to be a success. They also cast 2 hot actresses who were growing in films with Melissa McCarthy who had came off a string of $100-$200 million dollar films in the United States and Kristen Wiig who was starting to ascend.

It also had a built in audience that would have latched to it quick with Ghostbusters audience and the female demographic it was targeting. In fact the teaser poster seemed to play up how this was gonna be like the 1984 film in a sense with women involved. And how it could possibly be good.

http://movies.upcomingdate.com/wp-co...vie-Poster.jpg

But while Sony started off with something positive and Warners didn't , the roles quickly reversed. Sony watched as online a story leaked that the script was absolute **** and that McCarthy feared the film would do terrible and hurt her film career possibly. The script would later be leaked and it was considered to be pretty bad.

Then in March , Sony released the 1st trailer. And that is when things started to fall apart pretty damn quick. The trailer was so terrible , it has over 1+ million dislikes , it seemed to prove how bad this film would be. As the damage was going on Sony its claimed started deleting actual legit critiques of why the trailer was terrible and what needed fixed. Instead they kept the more insane comments about women and more. Deciding to do a costly dumb marketing campaign that would spell disaster in the weeks ahead.

Where as Warners decided to market Suicide Squad as fun film in the vein of Deadpool to make money , Sony decided that ...no this film isn't fun. Its a political statement. Yes folks , Sony decided that an Us v Them campaign was the way to go. That while there is a small audience of trolls who are misogynists and sexists , Sony felt that if they convinced folks that if there was a majority of these people they could get women behind the film. Forgetting that a good fraction of the anger at the 1st trailer was from older audience they needed , Sony went ahead by doing this marketing stance for weeks.

In this time Sony had its director and stars do interviews painting folks against the film as being horrible and that the older audience was misogynists. Also they were lonely and needed a husband or friend (McCarthy). The statements got more dumb as time came and the 2nd trailer just wasn't as good either. Sony started ramping up merch with toys and a video game.

But as sales of the video game and toys was terrible , Sony seemed to realize they had majorly fucked up. They had alienated the core audience they needed for the film. Instead of a fun comedic film they could have marketed ala Warners , in a month they shifted gears. As projections was the film would open between $31-50 million. Sony was playing catch up , by promoting at the NBA Finals with Kobe Bryant and the Papa Johns ad. A last second ditch attempt to get males into the theater on opening weekend.



This is where reality for both films entered. Where as Warners is now celebrating their costly gamble paying off (the film made nearly 80% of its production budget back opening weekend) , Sony had to watch as Ghostbusters made only a quarter of its production budget back and is now crawling along. Also the fact the film will not be opening in China and its a blow.

Sony meanwhile crowed over its opening and proclaimed they had relaunched a franchise , a fact that people are doing a ....wtf ? As the numbers prove they haven't and pretty much they are to blame for the failure of this franchise from taking off. Meanwhile Warners has launched a new property ...a costly one they gambled on and just opened at $131+ million outside the United States. Double the amount Ghostbusters has done outside the Domestic market.


So what failed for Sony ? It likely is the marketing campaign as I posted earlier. Warners saw a failed marketing campaign last summer , went back to the table and decided to focus on what Fox had done with Deadpool and applied it to their 2nd trailer. Meanwhile Sony learned absolutely NOTHING . Doubled down on a political statement , lost the audience they were supposedly targeting and then didn't get the female demographic they were supposedly after.

Instead of promoting a fun comedic film , Sony felt controversy and being discussed in national media for it was somehow gonna translate to ticket sales. They found out it didn't. They now have to sit and watch as a more costly gamble paid off , while the franchise that was a license to print money they boggled in epic fashion.

Suicide Squad could have been here . We could be saying it would bomb had Warners not changed course with marketing as we saw. So its a tale of 2 films and what 2 different studios did . One did right , the other did wrong.

Interesting read. I would argue that Sony even took more of a chance by basically changing the whole franchise though. That hurt it. I mean its like re making the magnificent 7 with 7 ladies.

[Drz]

Sony's marketing was to split the fan base and I guess they assumed the insulted white men would still go and watch the movie. WB didn't try to make fun of their fans at any means and the same won't happen with Disney's Rocketeer sequel btw.

[Flyattractor]

Ghostbusters kind of pulled a Snakes on a Plane where as SS didn't.

[Gryphon]

WB decided that alienating the fans was a bad idea. Sony thought any publicity would be good publicity. One was a good idea and one was a terrible idea

[trooper_thorn]

WB decided that alienating the fans was a bad idea. Sony thought any publicity would be good publicity. One was a good idea and one was a terrible idea

For some reason people kind of forget that WB was creating some successful comic book films/tv shows long before the recent Disney success. They understand just how much fanboys/girls can boost ticket and merchandise sales.

[Bukdiah]

I guess it's because they took a very Guardians of the Galaxy approach with this one. Splice in some upbeat music and the trailer and add some one liners/zingers, and you have people thinking it's gonna be fun. The promotion was very good and put people's asses in seats. Cool post by the way.

[AJBopp]

Wait...a year ago people were seriously saying Ghostbusters would do better than Suicide Squad? Seriously?

[Calighoula]

I guess it's because they took a very Guardians of the Galaxy approach with this one. Splice in some upbeat music and the trailer and add some one liners/zingers, and you have people thinking it's gonna be fun. The promotion was very good and put people's asses in seats. Cool post by the way.

I didn't think the Guardians trailers had any good lines. "What a bunch of a-holes!" and "I'm Star-looorrrrrd, man!" were bad lines to put in a trailer.

[Calighoula]

Wait...a year ago people were seriously saying Ghostbusters would do better than Suicide Squad? Seriously?

You were one of them. LOL.

[Bukdiah]

I didn't think the Guardians trailers had any good lines. "What a bunch of a-holes!" and "I'm Star-looorrrrrd, man!" were bad lines to put in a trailer.

Meh, comedy is so subjective. I found the SS trailer chock full of shitty jokes and lines (Sorry, the voices...I'm kidding, that's not what they really said) blech. Check out the tone of Trailer 2 of Guardians of Galaxy and SS Trailer #1 and you can see the similarities. Put in some of that upbeat music so people are tricked into thinking this is a great time, etc.

It's a moot point comparing trailers these days, since they follow the same formula for the most part though. Kinda like when every movie trailer uses the foghorn and bass drop lol

[AJBopp]

You were one of them. LOL.

I give you this. Made me look. But no, turns out that's not true.

[Calighoula]

I give you this. Made me look. But no, turns out that's not true.

AJ, your unskinny Bopp blows me away!