Task Force X: a misfit ensemble tasked to accomplish a nearly impossible mission that they will almost certainly fail. That's the basic premise of Suicide Squad, but it also accurately describes the theatrical run of the movie itself. Against all odds, Suicide Squad has become a box office powerhouse for the month of August, but now its theatrical run has begun to come to a close. As the curtain lowers on Suicide Squad's time in theaters, it seems that the movie may have become far more profitable than we would've expected only a few weeks ago.
According to a new report from Comicbookmovie.com, it appears that Suicide Squad has thus far garnered a rough total of $636 million, and it's not even done earning for Warner Bros. By the time the film has officially left theaters, it's estimated that the it will have earned a total box office gross in the range of $700-$730 million against a $175 million production budget. Not bad for a movie mostly centering on characters that audiences know almost nothing about, and it now seems that many industry experts have begun to eat their words.
Overall this seems like a major victory for the film, because its major Week 2 drop off in ticket sales initially spelled doom for the DC supervillain team up. By Suicide Squad's second weekend in theaters, many experts had predicted that the film would end its run with a relatively measly $650 million gross. The film still underperformed compared to what Warner Bros. probably expected prior to its release, but that doesn't change the fact that it did much better than experts estimated once it hit theaters and negative word of mouth started to spread like wild fire.
Like I said before: Suicide Squad pulled it off in the face of nearly impossible odds.
Of course, it's still worth noting that Suicide Squad also underperformed when compared to other major blockbusters that hit theaters within the last year. Marvel's Captain America: Civil War blows it out of the water with a $1.1 billion total gross, and 20th Century Fox's R-rated Deadpool even managed to beat it by raking in $760 million against a paltry $58 million budget. Suicide Squad kept Warner Bros. and the DCEU in the game, but it by no means gave them the definitive victory that they so clearly wanted. Regardless of this fact, a hit is still a hit.
With Suicide Squad's theatrical run now drawing to a close, all eyes are on Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman as the next major DCEU movie to achieve box office gold. Everything we've seen from the DCEU's future looks solid, so it's up to Warner Bros. to learn from Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad to correct its course with the next few movies. We will keep our fingers crossed.
Cinema Blend will bring you any and all relevant details related to the financial performance of Suicide Squad as more information becomes available to us. Suicide Squad is still in theaters; make sure to check it out while you still can!
