Like "Batman V Superman," "Suicide Squad" Experiences Steep Box-Office Plunge

[Calighoula]

BvS underperformed, but it still made a profit, and it's killing in video/download sales.

Suicide Squad's first week cume proves more people weren't willing to take everything the critics say at face value again.

[Comic-Reader Lad]

Possibly not, though. BvS needed to hit $1 billion for it to really be considered profitable by the higher ups, and ended up topping out at $850 mill and some change. This one needs to hit $750 million minimum, and possibly as high as $800. It could happen, but they may end up taking a bath on it, like Sony with Ghostbusters.

BvS didn't need to make $1 billion to be considered profitable. $1 billion was more of a hope -- not for profitability, but just based on expectations of what a movie of this type "should" have made.

Early estimates, months before the extra-big $166M opening was known, had the movie topping out in the $900 million range including a $350 million domestic total.

It ended up with $872 million worldwide and $330 million domestic. Definitely under their early tracking, but with all revenue streams counted, BvS will still make $200+ million profit.

Would they have preferred $500 million profit? Of course, but in spite of the critics' lambasting of the 3 DC movies, they've all been/will be profitable.

Obviously, you want that universal acclaim/praise for your movie franchise, so Warner does need to course correct to get that, but they don't need a wholesale reboot.

That's for undisputed financial bombs like Josh Trank's Fantastic Four or Andrew Garfield's Amazing Spider-Man 2. I'm sure X-Men Apocalypse falls into that category as well.

[Comic-Reader Lad]

It was a poor movie. Fox and Sony were slow to make corrections (I still don't know if Fox is going to overhaul the creative teams with FF and X-Men even after more crap being put on the big screen) so maybe Warner Bros. will smarten up. Zack Snyder should not take the lead for any movie let alone the DC franchise - he is awful. DC needs to make changes soon or their franchises will be toast before they even really start with this DC movie universe.

Also, let's be realistic here and maybe put the numbers/money aside. Did anyone think BvS, Man of Steel and Suicide Squad were good movies? I sure didn't. They were watchable and I'd never want to watch them more than once.

Numbers aside, I've liked all 3 DC movies:

Man of Steel: A-
BvS: B+
Suicide Squad: B

By comparison, many Marvel movies have been mediocre to bad in my book: Hulk, Incredible Hulk, Thor, Thor: Dark World, Iron Man 2, Iron Man 3, and Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Guardians of the Galaxy was really juvenile, and Ant-Man was a non-event. Neither disappointed because I didn't have a whole lot of hopes and dreams for those 2 movies, but neither made me care about those characters.

[Dwch]

How in the hell is the franchise toast when you have the first three movie make over 2 billion at the box office to date. What universe are people living in.

The same universe where Amazing Spider-Man makes over $700 million per movie and is considered a disaster.

[Jamie]

Suicide Squad - 8-Day Total: $192,454,728

Guardians of the Galaxy - 8-Day Total: $146,703,522

[kane]

They may have made a good chunk of change, but remember that theaters take about half of that, they have the production costs to pay for (which were extremely high in all three cases), and then there's the utterly massive marketing campaigns they've paid for. They seem to have been slightly profitable so far, but not by much is the problem. It's like spending $10 bucks to make $12. You can do that, but you gotta think is it really worth the effort. There may be better and more efficient ways at making money instead of cranking out critical duds over and over again that barely make back their costs, or possibly even lose some money.

This!

People for some reason are not able to understand the difference between turnover and profit. The movies probably made profit, but not as auch as the should have done especially if you take into account how much money was invested in to this movies. I assume that Deadpool alone made probably more profit than the 3 DC movies combined

[Doctor Know]

Possibly not, though. BvS needed to hit $1 billion for it to really be considered profitable by the higher ups, and ended up topping out at $850 mill and some change. This one needs to hit $750 million minimum, and possibly as high as $800. It could happen, but they may end up taking a bath on it, like Sony with Ghostbusters.

BvS was more like $872 million and some change.

Also the claim SS needs to make $700-$800 million+ is bs somebody made up.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/markhugh.../#1222a33f6f4e

The same universe where Amazing Spider-Man makes over $700 million per movie and is considered a disaster.

Difference is, TASM 2 was the lowest grossing Spider-Man movie in the series and Amy Pascal told investors that TASM 2 would be a billion dollar movie. Notice how all of Sony's shared Spider-Man universe and spin-offs dried up after they cancelled TASM series. Nothing in the DCEU has been cancelled by comparison.

[GhostPirate]

You have got to be kidding me. You have a franchise making over 2 billion on three movies in box office. Lord knows what in merc or streming of blue ray. What other franchise in history has ever been mirco analized like this? I have never seen anything like it. Its bizarre. No movie ever has done this well in august. Like ever. Its passing cbm after cbm and we have people claiming failure.

They haven't made $2b, they've grossed $2b, of which they'd net likely ~50% of... off of 3 movies that have estimated production costs totaling $650m (not including marketing costs, but not including merchandising or all the product placement... Superman! now crashing through your IHOP, Sears & U-Haul!... or dvd/digital sales). Catastrophic failure? No. Unbridled success? Also no. Mixed results are mixed.

Man of Steel did so well that they immediately felt the need to add Batman to the pseudo-sequel. BvS did so well that there were reports (which look pretty credible if you actually watch the movie) that the studio meddled heavily with Suicide Squad. Will SS do *so well* that WB execs insist on hacking WW and/or JL into oblivion? Time will tell.

It's also been micro-analyzed to the extremes it has been because DC fans have been so excessively defensive about it every step of the way (ZOMG! cloze don RT becuz critics r payed of bye diznee an dey dizagee wit mee), the genre is experiencing unprecedented success and helping largely carry a sagging theater industry right now, all while the movies themselves have been incredibly polarizing and, frankly, in WBs case, have been an interesting example of how awful movies with the right IP can still make ridiculous amounts of money opening weekend.

Basically, DC movies have become that dumpster fire that you know stinks to high heaven, but can't help but take a sniff as you're driving by...

And while it's fun to note the 2nd weekend drop-offs of better (read: MCU) movies, the slight difference in % (4-8%) has quickly ballooned to become movies that, in WBs case, are incredibly front-loaded and posting record opening weekends, but then faltering quickly and end up losing out in the long run. What's becoming obvious is that the GA want a quality alternative to the MCU, and WB could have themselves a license to print money if they'd only bother putting out good (or at least better) movies (regardless of tone- do serious if you want DC, just try to do it well)... but they aren't. Their marketing department is earning. their. checks. with getting huge positive buzz generated prior to release resulting in butts in seats on opening weekend, then the movies themselves end up being such a letdown that the WOM is quickly turning people against them, and the only people standing by them are the 'DC or bust' crowd that care more about the IP/company name (and the tone) than actual quality.

[inisideguy]

The same universe where Amazing Spider-Man makes over $700 million per movie and is considered a disaster.

Suicide squad will make more domestic after this weekend than asm2 made its whole run. There is no comparison

[solletaire]

I think the DCEU so far has it's core audience that will see these movies come hell or high water. But as far as the general audience goes, the movies have been more miss than hit.

Now is that a bad thing? So far, no. The DCEU films have done quite well at the box office. The only down side is they seem very front loaded, so their multipliers are not great. That said, the end result at the box office is good and more than sufficient to justify making more movies set in the DCEU.

Should DC/WB be concerned about this? Right now, no. If they can keep the core audience at the level that it is now, they will be quit successful. But as in all franchises they should be worried about attrition. Will there come a time when the core audience is not enough? Considering that unlike Harry Potter or Twilight, we are not dealing with a finite story with a set number of movies, but with a continuing epic and unlimited number of movies?

I think DC/WB should put some thought into the state of the DCEU. And by some thought I don't necessarily mean trying to alter their movies post-production...

[inisideguy]

They haven't made $2b, they've grossed $2b, of which they'd net likely ~50% of... off of 3 movies that have estimated production costs totaling $650m (not including marketing costs, but not including merchandising or all the product placement... Superman! now crashing through your IHOP, Sears & U-Haul!... or dvd/digital sales). Catastrophic failure? No. Unbridled success? Also no. Mixed results are mixed.

Man of Steel did so well that they immediately felt the need to add Batman to the pseudo-sequel. BvS did so well that there were reports (which look pretty credible if you actually watch the movie) that the studio meddled heavily with Suicide Squad. Will SS do *so well* that WB execs insist on hacking WW and/or JL into oblivion? Time will tell.

It's also been micro-analyzed to the extremes it has been because DC fans have been so excessively defensive about it every step of the way (ZOMG! cloze don RT becuz critics r payed of bye diznee an dey dizagee wit mee), the genre is experiencing unprecedented success and helping largely carry a sagging theater industry right now, all while the movies themselves have been incredibly polarizing and, frankly, in WBs case, have been an interesting example of how awful movies with the right IP can still make ridiculous amounts of money opening weekend.

Basically, DC movies have become that dumpster fire that you know stinks to high heaven, but can't help but take a sniff as you're driving by...

And while it's fun to note the 2nd weekend drop-offs of better (read: MCU) movies, the slight difference in % (4-8%) has quickly ballooned to become movies that, in WBs case, are incredibly front-loaded and posting record opening weekends, but then faltering quickly and end up losing out in the long run. What's becoming obvious is that the GA want a quality alternative to the MCU, and WB could have themselves a license to print money if they'd only bother putting out good (or at least better) movies (regardless of tone- do serious if you want DC, just try to do it well)... but they aren't. Their marketing department is earning. their. checks. with getting huge positive buzz generated prior to release resulting in butts in seats on opening weekend, then the movies themselves end up being such a letdown that the WOM is quickly turning people against them, and the only people standing by them are the 'DC or bust' crowd that care more about the IP/company name (and the tone) than actual quality.

This is so silly. A dumpster fire that is already the 9th highest grossing movie of the year after a week. The other ones are othe cbms and cartoons.

[drewmoore]

According to box office mojo, it made $64,893,248 on Friday, Aug. 5, the day it officially opened. Even if there were some late Thursday early screenings mixed in, it seems very unlikely that they pulled in $20 mil.

Keep in mind that Thursday "late night" showings now start at 7pm, so it's nearly a full day's worth of money. A 3-day second weekend will have an even larger percentage drop compared to a 4-day opening weekends.

[Don C]

Misleading percentage.

It dropped that much comparing this Friday as a single day to last week's Thursday AND Friday. The correct drop comparison is between Friday and Friday, which is 44 down to 13.

Yeah, but "Suicide Squad Experiences Normal Drop" isn't an attention-grabbing headline.

[Divine Spark]

Well...gotta credit For for listing some of the crappy Xmen movies that Fox has put out.

The Last Stand is really the only crappy one. Apocalypse's drop was on par with Days of Future Past.

I'm sure X-Men Apocalypse falls into that category as well.

It wasn't considering First Class was less profitable.

Difference is, TASM 2 was the lowest grossing Spider-Man movie in the series and Amy Pascal told investors that TASM 2 would be a billion dollar movie. Notice how all of Sony's shared Spider-Man universe and spin-offs dried up after they cancelled TASM series. Nothing in the DCEU has been cancelled by comparison.

It wasn't just because it was the lowest-grossing. It was because of the hack and Garfield being fired. It was a whole bunch of reasons.

[Angilasman]

I'm just sad that Pete's Dragon isn't doing well. By all accounts it's an excellent film, and it finally takes the advice of "don't remake perfect films, remake imperfect ones with a good premise."