Cinema Winter Hits Hollywood: Weekend Box Office Top 5

by Conan Simmons – August 9, 2021 – 6:27 am

Predictably, James Gunn’s newest take on DC comic book villains forming a team to defeat a greater evil came in at number one at the box office over the weekend. Less predictably, ‘The Suicide Squad’ earned less than $30 million in theaters. Analysts had the film pegged in the $30 to $40 million range, though the film really needed to come in at $60 million plus not only to show that theaters are still on the comeback but also to show positive signs for the rest of this years comic book superhero movies. Unfortunately, as is often the case when fans start clamoring for an R-rated movie, those fans failed to turn out to theaters likely opting instead to stream the film for free on HBO Max.

The Hollywood trade publication Variety made claim over the weekend that one reason for ‘The Suicide Squad’ flailing at the box office was because of “a lack of star power”. ‘The Suicide Squad’, directed by Gunn who is arguably the best director of Hollywood’s dominant franchise of the last ten years (Marvel movies), stars Oscar winners Viola Davis and Sylvester Stallone along with Oscar nominee Margot Robbie and the highly popular Idris Elba, as well as other fan favorites from Nathan Fillion, Michael Rooker, Peter Capaldi and Pete Davidson. If that’s a lack of star power then the upcoming Marvel films are in trouble with ‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’ starring Simu Liu, Awkwafina and Donnie Yen, or Marvel’s ‘Eternals’ starring Angelina Jolie, Salma Hayek, Kit Harrington and Kumail Nanjiani. Keep in mind, Marvel’s ‘Black Widow’ opened to decent numbers with $80 million at the box office opening weekend yet the star of the film, Scarlett Johansson, is suing Disney for lost revenue over box office performance being negatively impacted by streaming day-and-date.

Unlike ‘Black Widow’, ‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’ and ‘Eternals’ are set to be theater only releases.

Naturally, one of the biggest reasons for ‘The Suicide Squad’ failing to perform in theaters was not streaming day-and-date, no, it is the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. Yes, it’s still fatally dangerous. As 50% of the U.S. population is said to be fully vaccinated now (as more get vaccinated every day) and more theaters are open now than one month ago, it’s not clear why ‘Black Widow’ was able to open at $80 million and ‘F9: The Fast Saga’ at $70 million before that, or even ‘A Quiet Place Part II’ opening at over $50 million back in May, yet the highly publicized and anticipated ‘The Suicide Squad’ earned less than ‘Jungle Cruise’ or ‘Space Jam: A New Legacy’ in the last few weeks. Those two feature length films opened to just over $30 million a piece while streaming day-and-date on HBO Max. Is LeBron James a huge Hollywood star rivaling the popularity of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson?

As all of Hollywood and all of the box office analysts try to claim “it’s just a crazy time right now due to the pandemic nobody knows what normal is”, the best way to truly sum up the situation is that, since the pandemic caused everything to shut down last year, Hollywood is experiencing a cinema winter.

General apathy appears to have set in amongst audiences in the U.S. as the major studios are more interested in promoting their respective streaming services, probably to pull a Facebook later on by selling customer information to third parties. Audiences are likely to turn to streaming new releases not on opening weekend, choosing instead a later time that best fits whatever schedule they may or may not have. Why go to the theaters to see an over-glorified made for tv or straight to video movie that is literally being released on the same day to streaming video platforms that you will watch on your television?

One factor that is very likely, and surprisingly no one has even considered, for why the box office is lackluster for the most part this summer is the fact that it’s the first summer in two years that you are allowed to leave your house and go outside. The summer of 2020 everyone was in lockdown, with basically no movies being released the only option was television or streaming. Now everyone can start going out at try getting back to normal even as precautions are still needed to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

Will the cinema winter be over soon? Not this year. The quick drop-off at the box office of ‘Black Widow’ coupled with the low opening of ‘The Suicide Squad’ could possibly be an indication that the long fabled “superhero fatigue” is setting in, which definitely bodes ill for ‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’, ‘Eternals’, and other upcoming releases ‘Venom: Let There Be Carnage’ and ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’, both scheduled to open before the end of the year. It won’t explain why other films like the long delayed 007 adventure ‘No Time to Die’ or the sci-fi epic ‘Dune’ won’t open to huge numbers in the case that they too open at less than $100 million. ‘Dune’ probably won’t being a day-and-date release streaming on HBO Max on top of being a remake to a film that bombed so hard at the box office in 1984 that director David Lynch took his name off the film and replaced it with Alan Smithee.

Even with the poor box office showing over the weekend next weekend should still be interesting to watch as theater only releases ‘Don’t Breathe 2’, ‘Respect’ and ‘Free Guy’ seek to topple ‘The Suicide Squad’ from first place. ‘Respect’ is getting less than stellar reviews and most everyone is betting ‘Free Guy’ takes number one, but don’t rule out ‘Don’t Breathe 2’, it’s a sequel to a popular fan favorite horror film and, like ‘The Green Knight’ last weekend, I think it may have a surprisingly strong opening weekend.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE TOP 5 (August 6-8, 2021)

1. ‘The Suicide Squad’ – $26.5 million – action (debut)
2. ‘Jungle Cruise’ – $15.7 million – action-adventure (drop $18.5 million, 54% down)
3. ‘Old’ – $4.1 million – horror (drop $2.7 million, 40% down)
4. ‘Black Widow’ – $4 million – action (drop $2.4 million, 38% down)
5. ‘Stillwater’ – $2.9 million – drama (drop $2.2 million, 43% down)

The total for the Weekend Box Office Top 5 comes to $53.2 million. This is a decline of 10% for a drop of $6.1 million from last weekends total of $59.3 million.