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

[Vegtam]

Forbes won't let me read unless I'll let them slip through my add blocker, so their indubitably excellent insights will stay hidden from my perusal.

I hear ya. I almost never whitelist sites, and I resisted them for a long time, but I really like their box office writer, Scott Mendelson, there, so I allow them. It's the only site I've allowed through.

[Vegtam]

Don't mention that GOTG went way over budget or anything. It's not important.

Correct. Its budget is irrelevant to the subject at hand. What's important is its first weekend and overall box office.

[Midvillian1322]

Don't mention that GOTG went way over budget or anything. It's not important.

Clearly money well spent given the movie was still making 22mil in its 6th weekend. And when disney released that info they also said GOTG made back over 3 dollars for every dollar spent when all was done. Despite going slightly over budget

[Ace Venom]

Yes, the first three weeks, not the first week. A decent movie generally makes more than half its total after the first weekend. BvS made more than half its total in its first weekend. Suicide Squad is going the same direction. Yes, the studio gets a greater cut of the first week, which is why we see bigger opening weekends more and more, but they still want to see prolonged interest because that means most people liked it.

This isn't what were talking about here. If you're going to criticize front loading, then the best metric is the first three weeks i.e. the time when has the widest release. By comparison, Captain America: Civil War (87.2%), Avengers: Age of Ultron (83%), and Iron Man 3 (85.1%) were far more front loaded in the first three weeks than the first Avengers (76.5%) in terms of domestic box office. Of course studios want more money. But by using this same metric, is Marvel Studios worried about first three week front loading? No. Are there any articles talking about MCU front loading? No.

Yes, they're doing well enough to keep going, but they're not having break-out hits. Those three movies included Superman and Superman/Batman. Those movies should make a lot of money regardless of anything else. Those are their big guns. As you said they already shuffled the deck chairs, so obviously that $2 billion isn't good enough.

Marvel Studios had deck chairs reshuffled after Age of Ultron. There could be a number of reasons why WB did it the way it did. Geoff Johns certainly proved himself on the television side of things. Putting him on the brain trust makes more sense than having a director being on the brain trust of all the movies. Obviously, they want more money going forward. They're hits, but certainly not hits on the level of The Dark Knight Trilogy. At least not yet. But to try to argue $2 billion isn't good enough right now is preposterous. If you noticed, Warner Bros. reorganized all their divisions and not just DC Entertainment. WB has grossed $1 billion domestic for 16 years straight. It seems to me they're being more proactive than reactive than anything else.

No, either of those numbers beats expectations. But good reception means tens of millions of dollars in a case like this.

I think it would be tough to argue either way that the DCEU has been very profitable for WB no matter what at this point. And it's only going to improve.

[nightrider]

Correct. Its budget is irrelevant to the subject at hand. What's important is its first weekend and overall box office.

Interesting that your posts went from

But please by all means keep pretending people are calling this a financial failure. No one is saying that. What people are saying is it's not as successful as it could be. Having half your money come from opening weekend says something negative about your film. It says it got a lot of people pumped to see it before it came out, but once it did, it wasn't really good enough to attract many more people. Especially because these last big blockbusters of the season typically have better legs than earlier summer movies. So, after 10 days, it has $465 mil. After its whole run, it'll probably have $650 mil. WB will certainly take that result, and it's still a great number for this movie. But the fact that it's so front-loaded is concerning.

To GOTG budget is irrelevant. So apparently SS budget is relevant because its not as successful as it is.

[Calighoula]

Correct. Its budget is irrelevant to the subject at hand. What's important is its first weekend and overall box office.

And you're just interested in seeing if Squad's cume can exceed either/or. Right. Though you wager it won't. Except it already beat the first weekend.

[Ace Venom]

And you're just interested in seeing if Squad's cume can exceed either/or. Right. Though you wager it won't. Except it already beat the first weekend.

Even if SS doesn't beat GOTG, SS is already one of the highest grossing films of the year.

[Warmonger]

I don't give a rats ass about box office. I don't personally see a dime of that money, so whats it to me?

I care about whether these movies are good or not, and so far, the DCEU is 0 for 3.

Wonder Woman better not be a shitfest, otherwise every project after Justice League may very well be cancelled.

[The Darknight Detective]

I don't give a rats ass about box office. I don't personally see a dime of that money, so whats it to me?

It matters regarding whether or not more films will be made. Since they're making money so far, that means there will definitely be more. Good for people like me, but not necessarily you.

[Vegtam]

This isn't what were talking about here. If you're going to criticize front loading, then the best metric is the first three weeks i.e. the time when has the widest release. By comparison, Captain America: Civil War (87.2%), Avengers: Age of Ultron (83%), and Iron Man 3 (85.1%) were far more front loaded in the first three weeks than the first Avengers (76.5%) in terms of domestic box office. Of course studios want more money. But by using this same metric, is Marvel Studios worried about first three week front loading? No. Are there any articles talking about MCU front loading? No.

I don't know where you're coming up with this "first three weeks" stuff, but that's not a good measurement. The biggest point is what happens after reviews and word of mouth have their say. That's after the first weekend. No one is talking about MCU front-loading because it's not particularly. They tend to have pretty good legs as far as movies like these go.

Marvel Studios had deck chairs reshuffled after Age of Ultron.

No, they didn't. They might have made some tweaks in certain ways, but they didn't make any significant changes. Not like rearranging their whole business model like DC did.

There could be a number of reasons why WB did it the way it did. Geoff Johns certainly proved himself on the television side of things. Putting him on the brain trust makes more sense than having a director being on the brain trust of all the movies. Obviously, they want more money going forward. They're hits, but certainly not hits on the level of The Dark Knight Trilogy. At least not yet. But to try to argue $2 billion isn't good enough right now is preposterous. If you noticed, Warner Bros. reorganized all their divisions and not just DC Entertainment. WB has grossed $1 billion domestic for 16 years straight. It seems to me they're being more proactive than reactive than anything else.

$2 billion isn't good enough when you're spending $700+ million, and the trend is that you get the people who really want to see it right away but not much else. It's enough that they're not completely panicking or giving up, but it's low enough that they feel the need to make significant changes.

I think it would be tough to argue either way that the DCEU has been very profitable for WB no matter what at this point. And it's only going to improve.

It has not been very profitable. BvS barely made money at all. It's enough that they're making some money, but not a lot, considering the size of the movies. And we can hope it improves, but you can't say it's going to. It will, if they improve the quality of the offerings. If they don't, chances are it will fade away.

[Vegtam]

Interesting that your posts went from



To GOTG budget is irrelevant. So apparently SS budget is relevant because its not as successful as it is.

1) Maybe read the posts you're replying to. The ones you quoted are perfectly consistent. I'm not even sure why you thought they weren't. I said GotG's budget was not relevant to the subject in that post, just the opening weekend and overall box office. The bold part of the other post said "Having half your money come from opening weekend says something negative about your film". So, in both cases I'm very clearly saying it's about opening weekend and overall take. Maybe you could point out where your problem is with that.

2) Both of those movies' budgets are relevant in other contexts, but not in the context of comparing the two movies' opening weekends as percentages of their overall takes. I didn't say GotG was a bigger success financially. I said it made more at the box office.

[Vegtam]

And you're just interested in seeing if Squad's cume can exceed either/or. Right. Though you wager it won't. Except it already beat the first weekend.

Yes, I'll wager a lot that GotG's final gross will be higher than Suicide Squad's. With this second-weekend drop, it's not going much past $300 mil, if it even makes it there. Chances are it ends up around $285-290 mil. And for worldwide, it would then need $500 mil to beat the overall total of GotG. So, yes, again, it beat its first weekend. It just barley inched out GotG's second weekend. And from here, GotG will win the rest.

[AJBopp]

Correct. Its budget is irrelevant to the subject at hand. What's important is its first weekend and overall box office.

Only the overall box office is important

[AJBopp]

I care about whether these movies are good or not, and so far, the DCEU is 0 for 3.

Depends on when you count the start of DCEU. DC movies, in terms of quality, were beating the pants off Marvel (X-Men, Iron Man, Spider-Man, whatever) until MoS was released. Dark Knight Rises is legitimately questionable. But since then, the quality of Marvel films has broadly been much higher than DC films, despite obvious outliers like Fant4stic or later X-Men/Wolverine films.

Wonder Woman and Doctor Strange trailers being released on the same day was telling. Both were good, but Strange was clearly the more polished film, and generated the greater interest. Could be because that film is further into production though.

DC has had it's outliers too, but it would be a bold fan who suggested that Superman IV or Supergirl was lower quality than Fant4stic or Wolverine.

[Vegtam]

Only the overall box office is important

No, the opening weekend and its relation to the overall number are relevant too. It gives you an indication of audiences overall reaction.