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Film critics have destroyed Suicide Squad, but the new DC movie has outdone itself at the box office.
Suicide Squad, a movie based the DC comics antihero team, raked in an astounding $135.1 million over the weekend, breaking the record for the highest-grossing opening weekend for a movie in August.
The previous two records were held by two Marvel films: Guardians of the Galaxy, which took in $94.3 million in 2014, and Deadpool, which raked in $134.2 million last year.
Suicide Squad has been highly anticipated because it was seen as DC Comics' answer to the Marvel Universe's thriving film franchises built on The Avengers, Iron-Man, Captain America, Ant-Man, and others. This movie had the star power of Will Smith, Jared Leto and Margot Robbie, with Leto taking on the iconic role of The Joker. It also the supposed benefit of learning from the flaws of the critically-panned Batman v. Superman, reportedly reshooting scenes to add a comedic element to the movie.
But the movie has received blistering reviews, with a horrifying 26 percent rating on the review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes. The poor feedback made headlines all week, making people wonder how the film would fare at the box office.
It looks like viewers either didn't care enough about the reviews to not see the movie, or that the negative reviews made them more interested in seeing it. Although many publications point out a large 20 percent drop off of ticket sales between Friday and Saturday, implying negative word of mouth that may have made some would-be viewers change their minds.
Batman v. Superman and Suicide Squad both have the benefit of fan infatuation and intrigue with them being early films in the new DC Comics Universe. The upcoming Justice League movie may have the same, since it will have an ensemble cast of superheroes like Batman, Superman, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, The Flash and Cyborg. One would think that DC will have to bring it with the individual characters' films if they want to compete with Marvel, but maybe competing isn't the goal anyway - maybe it's just getting a piece of the comic book movie pie.
