Warner Bros.' third official DC Extended Universe filmSuicide Squadhit theaters a week ago, and this past weekend all eyes were on how well the film would fareat the box office. Indeed, theDavid Ayer-directed supervillain pic set box office records for August with its opening, but a film’s performance in its second weekend is usually a pretty solid harbinger of how well the film will end up faring overall. Why? Because the amount of folks that turn out the second weekend give a solid gauge of whether audiences at large like the film enough to see it again and/or suggest it to friends.
The jury is still out onSuicide Squadas a whole. Critics by and large were not kind, but there are plenty of folks who are big fans of what Ayer and Warner Bros. put together. So while debate over the film’s quality rages on, box office continues to be what many are focusing on.
As such, we decided to take a closer look at the second weekend performance ofSuicide Squadas compared to other recent superhero movies. Now this doesn’t tell us anythingdefinitivelyabout the future performance of the film, but it does provide a point of comparison using hard data and statistics, not opinion, which is interesting.
WhetherSuicide Squadgoes on to gross $700 million worldwide or $500 million, Warner Bros. remains committed to this DC Extended Universe, and it’s entirely possible that we see these characters again in some form, be itSuicide Squad 2or another DC adaptation. Despite the fact thatSuicide SquadandBatman v Superman: Dawn of Justiceweren’t as critically acclaimed as WB was hoping, there are plenty of promising DC projects in the works, so there’s no reason to spell “doom and gloom” just yet.
For now, take a look at the chart below to see the comparison between domestic box office drop-offs of some of the more recent superhero pics.
First Weekend
Second Weekend
Batman v Superman
$166,007,347
$51,335,254
Fantastic Four
$25,685,737
$8,168,756
Suicide Squad
$133,682,248
$43,770,000
Man of Steel
$116,619,362
$41,287,206
The Amazing Spider-Man 2
$91,608,337
$35,501,212
Avengers: Age of Ultron
$191,271,109
$77,746,929
Captain America: Civil War
$179,139,142
$72,637,142
$132,434,639 (3-Day Total)
$56,470,167
$57,225,526
$24,909,644
Guardians of the Galaxy
$94,230,883
$42,124,922
$98,618,668
$51,190,629
