"The first bits of pre-release tracking are in for what is expected to be a final shot-in-the-arm for the 2016 summer movie season. Per Hollywood Reporter, David Ayer’s Suicide Squad is tracking for a $125 million debut weekend. Now tracking is not an exact science, but unless the reviews turn out to be both very bad and very much in the “You won’t get what you paid for” variety, I don’t see any reason for the buzz to go down over the next three weeks.
If the numbers hold, then Warner Bros./Time Warner Inc.’s supervillain team-up picture will easily set a new record for the month of August. The current record holder is Walt Disney’s Guardians of the Galaxy, which opened with $94 million two summers ago before legging it to $333m domestic (a 3.5x multiplier) to take the summer crown at the last minute.
That was a different situation in that the season was littered with lower-tier franchises like The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and even Transformers: Age of Extinction stalled at $245 million while making $1 billion worldwide. So while the DC Films entry will probably not steal the live-action summer crown from Captain America: Civil War ($406m), it has a pretty good shot at easily being the second-biggest live-action release of the season."
I'm looking forward to watching this one. I hope Jared Leto's Joker will be half as good as Ledger's. Is anyone planning to go to the movies to watch Suicide Squad?
