The supervillain movie Suicide Squad shrugged off scathing reviews to open with an estimated $135.1m in North American ticket sales, one of the year’s biggest box-office debuts.
The Warner Bros film, directed by David Ayer, had increased pressure on its performance following the studio’s previous poorly received DC Comics film Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Despite a lead-in of critical dissension, Suicide Squad proved a massive draw. It set a new record for an August opening, besting Marvel’s 2014 hit Guardians of the Galaxy, which took $94.3m.
“It bested anything that we could have expected,” said Jeff Goldstein, Warner Bros distribution executive vice-president. “The marketing campaign was brilliant and the performances by the cast, starting with Will Smith, Margot Robbie and Jared Leto, were just extraordinary. They’re fun and wicked and fans enjoy it.”
Not everything was roses for Suicide Squad, though. After fans flocked to theaters on Thursday night and Friday, audiences dropped steeply on Saturday. That could forecast further sharp declines in coming weeks for the $175m film, which also came with a massive marketing budget.
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice also managed to overcome the bad notices to debut with $166m, only for poor word-of-mouth to catch up in its second weekend, pushing receipts down by nearly 70%.
Audiences appeared to like Suicide Squad better than critics, handing the film a B+ CinemaScore. Younger consumers appear to like the film better than older moviegoers, with those under the age of 18 giving it an A rating.
Men accounted for 54% of Suicide Squad’s opening weekend audience, with more than half of the audience clocking in under 25. Warner Bros released the film across 4,255 locations. Imax accounted for 381 of those venues, and the big screen company accounted for $11m of the first weekend gross.
“There’s a major disconnect with between what the critics are saying and what audiences are seeing,” said Goldstein.
The weekend’s other new release, EuropaCorp’s Nine Lives, died a quick death. The story of a ruthless executive (Kevin Spacey) who gets transformed into a cat made $6.5m after scoring even worse reviews than Suicide Squad.
Spacey barely promoted the movie, which was the brainchild of former EuropaCorp chief executive Christophe Lambert, who envisioned the film as a high-concept comedy before repositioning it as a family film. Ousted from the company last February, Lambert died of lung cancer in May at the age of 51. Nine Lives cost just over $30m to make.
Last weekend’s top film, Jason Bourne, dropped 62% in its second week, topping out at $22m. That was strong enough for a second-place finish, bringing the spy sequel’s domestic haul to $103.4m.
STX Entertainment’s Bad Moms took third place in its second weekend, picking up $14.2m. The raunchy comedy about a group of mothers who rebel against pressures to be perfect parents has made $51m, a healthy return on its $20m budget.
Universal’s The Secret Life of Pets was fourth with $11.6m. The family comedy is one of the year’s biggest hits, having made $319.6m. Paramount’s Star Trek Beyond rounded out the top five, earning $10.2m to push its US gross to $127.9m after three weeks.
