Weekend Box Office: Suicide Squad Holds Number One Against Box Office Bombs

Weekend Box Office: August 19-21, 2016

There were three new movies in theaters this weekend, but all three newcomers struggled to various degrees, leaving Suicide Squad with an unremarkable but solid third weekend in the number one spot.

Suicide Squad dropped another 52% from last week, but still held the top spot for a third weekend in a row, adding $20 million to its $262 million domestic total. The comic flick is set to land around $330 to $350 million, matching its fellow DC movie Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. That's another solid victory for DC, but the totals are still well below the $407 million and $360 million totals earned by this year's Marvel competition Captain America: Civil War and Deadpool respectively.

War Dogs performed the best among the three newcomers, both for the weekend and in terms of its price tag. The rated-R comedy took third place with $14 million against a $40 million budget. Limited international attention and a likely heavy decline in the coming weeks has left the movie in a slow race to try and break even.

Animated feature Kubo and the Two Strings fared little better. By comparison to other animated movies its $60 million production cost is almost modest, but with just $12 million on opening weekend Kubo has a tough road to recover. International release has been limited and foreign markets might eventually help make up the difference, but despite being critically celebrated it's unlikely to be one of the top ten earning animated features of the year.

The big bomb this weekend was Timur Bekmambetov's take on Ben-Hur. With just $11 million for a fifth place debut, the action packed tanker first took a beating at the hands of critics and now from audiences. Even with foreign money rolled in the epic is set to end up well in the red.

For the full weekend top ten, check out the chart below:

Weekend Box Office: August 19-21, 2016