So much for slowing down. In fact, that is a massive number on a Tuesday -- a record -- and even more impressive considering the Olympics are ongoing.

Don’t underestimate the box office traction of Warner Bros. Suicide Squad. In its fifth day at the box office, the David Ayer DC villain movie took in $14.27M, up 9% from Monday. Of course, that’s a record Tuesday in August, and as we’ve seen all along, Suicide Squad keeps whomping Disney/Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy records. That film previously owned the Tuesday high for August with $11.9M. But here’s what Suicide Squad‘s till yesterday outflanks when it comes to Tuesday highs: Captain America: Civil War‘s at $13.76M, Avengers: Age of Ultron‘s $13.1M and Batman v. Superman‘s $12.7M Tuesday.

http://deadline.com/2016/08/suicide-squ ... 201801379/

Here's an interesting letter from a former WB employee...


http://www.pajiba.com/think_pieces/an-o ... donuts.php

The legacy this WB regime is going to leave behind is jaw-dropping -- for all the wrong reasons. One horrible POS after another.

4/10

What a bloody mess. Aside from Margot Robbie's lascivious grin and her ass in those spangly shorts and a few of Will Smith's quips, this was alarmingly incoherent, steeped in decades' worth of comic book lore that's given little-to-no crucial exposition to explain to general audiences who these characters even are (with the film's music supervisor ladeling on the gimmicky song choices as thunderingly blunt-witted shorthand...I half-expected to start hearing old soundtracks saws like "Bad To The Bone" and "I Feel Good" pop up). And, seriously, it's the umpteenth superhero genre film in the last decade to climax with the same boring ball of glowing energy circled by a ring of orbiting CGI debris. There's no wit, no clever character interplay to hang onto, nothing but an endless parade of empty-calorie skirmishes and fleeting scraps of setup for more leaden, joyless DC films in the future. Um, hooray?

Second weekend figures on Suicide Squad are looking like it will plummet by at least 67% from its opening. The drop from Friday to Friday was 80%. Looks like Sausage Party beat it Friday, even though Suicide Squad was on nearly 1100 more screens, as it apparently hasn't been pulled from any houses yet. Something tells me that will change very quickly this coming week.

At the rate it's slowing down, it looks to me like they will probably top out at around 500m, give or take. Which puts them somewhere around 100m short of breaking even, and they'll need to make that up in home video. So it's not quite the 200m haircut I was thinking WB would take here, but it is still not going to be profitable until sometime during the home video cycle. This now sets up a diminishing returns cycle that doesn't look good for either the Wonder Woman movie or the Justice League monster coming next year.

I have not heard production starts announced for the intended inflictions of Aquaman and non-TV Flash. I have to wonder if the execs at WB are waiting to see how much of a bath they think they are going to take before plunging any farther down this well...

Its a massive drop but it's not horrific given the Olympics are going on. If it actually cost $175 mil then $500 mil would come close to breaking even. Even then you aren't taking into account home video and on demand and everything else. At the least it should break even, they won't be losing money on it IMO unless they haven't been honest about the cost.

I also see it having no problem clearing $500mil anyway. Its nearly at $400 mil right now, has some juice left here and plenty left overseas where it hasn't opened in a slew of major markets. China being one and even Batman Superman did nearly $100 mil by itself there. Not that SS will equal it but it should play well.

Of course that doesn't make it good and obviously it is not a good film. Wonder Woman being a mess I completely believe because not one of them outside the Nolan films has been truly decent.

I'm pretty sure they're lying about the budget. They said one number and then dropped it fast when they got close to opening.
But maybe they didn't spend 250m on it. They might have kept it to 225m or even 200m somehow. There are just too many name players in this movie, and too much time spent on reshoots, etc, for me to believe the movie came in as low as they are trying to present it.
Even if we accept their story that they somehow did this for 175m, the multiplier would take the break-even to 525m.
I have to concede that they could get there with China. And even if they don't, they'll make their money back on home video and on the ancillary merchandising I'm sure they're selling of all the characters.


A new flap is now happening over Wonder Woman. After the article I linked was posted, from a female former employee at WB who finally had enough of all the bad decisions, the director of WW, Patty Jenkins took to Twitter and began desperately trying to deny everything the employee had stated. To my ears, it sounded like the lady doth protest too much. I firmly expect to hear about reshoots and other tidbits as we get closer to the inflictions of the next of these special wonders from WB.

And again, still no word on actually moving forward with Rick Famuyiwa's Flash movie or James Wan's Aquaman. Other than some basic option deals and proposed scripts, nothing has actually happened with these productions. I believe they are still early enough that they could be pushed back in order to see whether this idea has any validity to it. Given that BS essentially broke even plus some change, and it looks like Suicide Squad will come in under that, they're in a real bind now at WB. One can only hope that they don't get themselves into a billion dollars of debt because of Zack Snyder.