The Suicide Squad won the domestic box office this weekend with an underwhelming $26.5 million, which may have been the result of the film being available on HBO Max at no extra charge and the rising concern of the Delta variant of COVID-19.
As reported by Variety, The Suicide Squad earned another $35 million from 70 overseas territories, but that is still a far cry away from its budget of $185 million and the "many million more to promote globally."
As previously mentioned, there are many factors that most likely led to this, especially considering the universal praise of the film from director James Gunn. It also most likely did very well on HBO Max, but DC has yet to disclose those numbers.
“Currently, this is an unforgiving market,” says David A. Gross, who runs the movie consulting firm Franchise Entertainment Research. “Under normal conditions, a strong marketing campaign can overcome a few drawbacks and generate a good weekend. Under current conditions, that isn’t happening.”
The Suicide Squad did, however, have the largest domestic pandemic opening weekend for an R-rated film, which also may have kept out some of the younger crowd.
2016's Suicide Squad had opening weekend sales of $133 million before continuing on to rake in $746 million globally, but that was obviously before the pandemic and the movie wasn't available on any streaming service.
Wonder Woman 1984, another DC film that was also released on HBO Max, earned $16.7 million in its opening weekend in December 2020. At that time, only around 35% of theaters were reopened as opposed to around 85% of theaters in the US and Canada today, according to Comscore. The Suicide Squad was also just shy of beating Birds of Prey's $33.3 million.
The Suicide Squad beat out Disney's Jungle Cruise, which dropped 55% from last week by earning $15.7 million. It earned $34.2 million in its opening weekend, with another $30 million coming in via Disney+ Premier Access.
M. Night Shymalan's Old took third place with $4.1 million, Marvel's Black Widow secured the #4 spot with $4 million, and Matt Damon's Stillwater took fifth with $2.86 million.
For more on The Suicide Squad, check out our review, a look at who dies in the film, and our explainer of the end credits scenes.
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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.