Though Suicide Squad ultimately came up tad bit short of expectations, the Warner Bros. title did a bang up job in its opening weekend, earning an estimated $135 million in its first three days of national release. That number marks the third best opener of the year behind Captain America: Civil War and fellow DC entry Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and marks the strongest opening weekend ever for the month of August – a record that Suicide Squad obliterated by nearly $40 million (it was Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy that previously held the biggest August debut with $94 million back in 2014).
Expectations for Suicide Squad were immense considering a prolonged marketing campaign seemingly invited a sense of fun and mischief to the otherwise fairly bleak DC Comics movie universe thus far. While reviews for the film ultimately soured some of those expectations and engaged a tenuous divide between critics and moviegoers, David Ayer‘s DC villains bonanza got the job done out of the gates. The damage of those expectations may come into play in the coming weeks however. Despite withering reviews, Batman v Superman came out strong with a $166 opening weekend take but ultimately floundered as word of mouth shrunk its growth to a less-than-expected $330 million domestic total earlier this year. Box office experts are expecting Suicide Squad may have a second weekend drop-off of about 67%.
Suicide Squad, which Ayer (Fury) wrote as well as directed, stars Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Jared Leto, Joel Kinnaman, Viola Davis, Jai Courtney, Jay Hernandez, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Scott Eastwood, and Cara Delevingne. The film took many of DC Comics’ most celebrated villains – including Harley Quinn, Deadshot and The Joker (albeit, in a brief turn) – and brought them together as a ragtag, crime-fighting team.
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