Warner Bros.' third official DC Extended Universe film Suicide Squad hit theaters a week ago, and this past weekend all eyes were on how well the film would fare at the box office. Indeed, the David 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 on Suicide Squad as 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.

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Image via Warner Bros.

As such, we decided to take a closer look at the second weekend performance of Suicide Squad as compared to other recent superhero movies. Now this doesn’t tell us anything definitively about the future performance of the film, but it does provide a point of comparison using hard data and statistics, not opinion, which is interesting.


Whether Suicide Squad goes 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 it Suicide Squad 2 or another DC adaptation. Despite the fact that Suicide Squad and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice weren’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.

Title

First Weekend

Second Weekend

% Drop

Batman v Superman

$166,007,347

$51,335,254

69%

Fantastic Four

$25,685,737

$8,168,756

68%

Suicide Squad

$133,682,248

$43,770,000

67%

Man of Steel

$116,619,362

$41,287,206

64%

The Amazing Spider-Man 2

$91,608,337

$35,501,212

61%

Avengers: Age of Ultron

$191,271,109

$77,746,929

59%

Captain America: Civil War

$179,139,142

$72,637,142

59%

Deadpool

$132,434,639 (3-Day Total)

$56,470,167

57%

Ant-Man

$57,225,526

$24,909,644

56%

Guardians of the Galaxy

$94,230,883

$42,124,922

55%

Iron Man

$98,618,668

$51,190,629

48%

jared-leto-joker-zack-snyders-justice-league-hbo-max
Image via Warner Bros.

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Clay Enos/ & © DC Comics Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
suicide-squad-2-joel-kinnaman-will-smith
Image via Warner Bros.
suicide-squad-will-smith-margot-robbie
Clay Enos/ & © DC Comics Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
suicide-squad-cast-image
Clay Enos/ & © DC Comics Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures