The Suicide Squad arrived in theaters and on HBO Max last Friday, and the box office results for the movie have been disappointing to say the least. The pandemic has been blamed, as has that streaming release, but it seems the latter may not have had the negative impact you'd think.
Deadline has shared some stats from Samba TV revealing that James Gunn's DC Comics movie was viewed by 2.8 million households in the U.S. this weekend. That puts it 26% behind Mortal Kombat which, despite mixed to negative reviews, drew a whopping 3.8 million households. On the plus side, The Suicide Squad is in front of Wonder Woman 1984 (2.2 million households) and Zack Snyder's Justice League (1.8 million households over four days).
However, after one Twitter user crunched the numbers using the average price of a theater ticket this year - just shy of $10 - it's clear that The Suicide Squad would have still disappointed. A $54.5 million opening weekend in the current climate certainly wouldn't be looked at as a failure, but that's still less than 2016's Suicide Squad made during its first day of release.
Even if you start playing around with the numbers and assume half of those households have at least two paying theatergoers in them, The Suicide Squad seemingly wasn't destined for major BO takings.
Why not? It's the "Tomb Raider Trap."
For those of you unfamiliar with the phrase, it's used by box office pundits to describe what happens when a bad movie becomes a box office hit, only for a future superior sequel to be rejected by paying customers who are afraid of being stung for a second time (Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life made just $156 million compared to the original Tomb Raider's $274 million).
Between this, a $185 million budget, and a marketing spend of over $100 million, a third Suicide Squad movie sadly appears to be off the table. Hopefully, Peacemaker will be successful enough to ensure these characters can return on HBO Max, but it seems Gunn wasn't the DCEU saviour Warner Bros. hoped for.