Suicide Squad

[Malcolm]

The real question is...

If SS stumbles during the first to second weekend transition, as did BvS, then how fucked is DC's universe of movies?

[Malcolm]

Ever wonder how the Joker came to look like a retarded juggalo?

I was lucky enough to speak with David Ayer during a recent press day for Suicide Squad, and we started discussing his take on The Joker, and where the inspirations came from. The Joker in this story is a criminal kingpin, a lunatic with immense power who's unpredictable, and feared. Ayer says that the touches came from the earliest days of the DC character, explaining to me:

I went back to the very first Joker comic. I think it was 1941 or something like that, which is also coincident with the first Batman comics. Batman the detective from the '40s had Joker as this insane gangster. When you look at the '40s and what was going on in the world, this concept of an insane gangster begins to make sense in regards to the time. So by then taking the insane gangster idea, the minimal seed, the core seed of Joker, bringing him into the modern world, what would an insane gangster look like today? That's when you get the tattoos, the car, and the clothes, and the attitude.

And you know, Jared, what courage. I mean, to take on such a character that had been done so well in the past -- the best-known villain in modern fiction. So yeah, it was scary. It was really, really scary. Because I'm a fan. And if you sit there as a fan, you're like, 'Wow, ok, someone is going to reinvent The Joker? WTF?' But I'm really proud of what he did. It is The Joker. His performance as The Joker feels like The Joker. He became The Joker, and brought The Joker to life. So that worked. That really worked.

Emphasis mine. Yep, I think that puts the final nail in any desire to see. You fucking made THIS travesty:

... and thought, "Yeah, this is a fucking home run."

[Malcolm]

Review is not good.

Just when you think the summer movie season can’t get any worse, along come the “Worst. Heroes. Ever.” And while the film’s official tagline is selling its stars a little bit short (surely last year’s incarnation of The Fantastic Four still holds that dubious distinction), the mundane, milquetoast, and often mind-bogglingly stupid “Suicide Squad” almost makes good on the threat of its marketing campaign.

So, better than F4. That's looking up.

There’s Deadshot (Will Smith), the world’s deadliest sniper, and the closest thing this movie has to a clear protagonist, though Ayer resists that fact at every turn. His only weakness: He misses his daughter. There’s El Diablo (an unrecognizable Jay Hernandez), a fire-starter who’s recommitted himself to a life of non-violence. His only weakness? He misses his wife. There’s Rick Flag (a lifeless Joel Kinnaman), the righteous do-gooder who’s in charge of the team. He misses his girlfriend (Cara Delevingne), an archaeologist who happens to be inhabited by the spirit of a very unfriendly Aztec goddess referred to as Enchantress. There’s a humanoid crocodile (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) who doesn’t contribute much to the team, a dumb Australian guy who contributes even less (Jai Courtney), and some other characters whom Ayer adds to the mix with the strain of a juggler trying to prove that he can.

And then — bringing up the rear in more ways than one — there’s Dr. Harleen Quinzel (Margot Robbie), aka Harley Quinn. Volatile, rambunctious, and sexualized to such an extreme that she feels like she wandered out of the film’s XXX parody (there are more shots of her ass than there are of several of the film’s supporting characters)
...
Jared Leto creates a surprisingly sensual Joker, a Joker who likes to cradle people’s faces in his hands while he’s talking to them. Like Tony Montana if Jim Carrey had starred in “Scarface,” Leto is part gangster and part clown, but he’s not really part of this movie.
...
If “Suicide Squad” falls off a cliff the moment the uniting stops and the fighting begins, that’s partially because Enchantress — the enemy that draws our task force into Midway City — is an unmitigated disaster. Blessed with absolutely zero emotional stakes and forced to spend most of the movie gyrating against a green screen, the character is a perfect shitstorm of bad decisions.

The second weekend drop off for this could be a cliff.

[Malcolm]

David Ayer's twitter account takes off after rabid fans defend SS from its 35% RT rating.

Among the myriad problems with this is that Rotten Tomatoes does not generate any content, merely aggregate it; its “rotten” and “fresh” ratings are derived from established critics who submit reviews written for other outlets to Rotten Tomatoes to be counted among their aggregated ratings. To say that Rotten Tomatoes itself is actively biased against DC Films is ignoring how the site actually works. It’s also ignoring that Warner Bros. owns a 30% stake in the website and would likely not be too keen on tanking the reception to their own films.

As for bias among critics, the real problem is that many critics underwhelmed by films like Batman v Superman or Suicide Squad simply have no reverence for the characters – at least not on the level of lifelong fans who have champed at the bit for a big screen meeting of the Man of Steel and the Dark Knight or for a live-action Harley Quinn since they were kids. Someone for whom seeing a character come to life in that way holds no impact won’t understand what it means to fans, and likewise fans who deeply want to see these characters in film won’t understand why that holds no power over the nuts and bolts of criticism.

Emphasis mine. I'm simply fucking amazed someone is calling out the CRITICS for not getting characters after I saw SS adverts with poster art that looked like "Juggalo Joker and Trailer Trash Hipster Harley Quinn Go to Town."

[Malcolm]

Cara is a dumb-ass.

Delevingne is not quite in petition-writing mode, but she does suspect there might be some bias at play here. “The critics have been absolutely horrific. They’re really, really horrible. You know, I just don’t think they like superhero movies,” Cara Delevingne told Reuters. “It doesn’t really matter what the critics say at the end of the day, it’s the fans that we made this movie for.”

Yeah, that's why they panned The Avengers, Deadpool, Guardians of the Galaxy, and a host of other movies made by people who aren't interested in using the comic source material for toilet paper.

The “it’s for the fans” response was a popular one during the Batman v Superman publicity tour and, initially, it looked like the fans would turn the movie into a box-office success despite critical backlash. But while that film was far from a flop, it showed a significant and historic drop at the box office during its second week. Even the fans weren’t going for it.

For the fans, my ass. BvS was an insult to fans. SS isn't shaping up to be any better.

So where does Warner Bros. go from here? How do they restore faith in a franchise that keeps trying and failing to get off the ground? Some hope that the upcoming Wonder Woman film will “save” the franchise. The Comic-Con trailer garnered massive buzz among critics and fans alike but, then again, so did the Suicide Squad trailer back in 2015.

Maybe hire someone who's fucking read the comics and doesn't skull-fuck the characters. And, just to pour some salt in the wound...

While Suicide Squad is getting lambasted for its treatment of women and minorities, there’s hope that Wonder Woman, with its message of female empowerment, will have appeal beyond DC’s bro base. But critics (and audiences) looking for a shift in tone from director Patty Jenkins may be in for a disappointment. The director took to Twitter to rave about Suicide Squad...

WW is not looking like it's in good hands.

[TPRJones]

At what point do we just write off the entire DC Universe of movies as a failed experiment and box it all up for a decade before letting anyone try again?

[Malcolm]

Dude, I think there's a petition to shut down RT right now, started by SS fans. One cannot stop the crazy freight train on a dime.

[Leisher]

Kevin Smith claims it's one of the best super hero movies ever.

However, note that Smith gives out compliments to movies like a Kardashian gives out blowjobs at the NBA all star game. So grain of salt already. Factor in the fact that he writes occasionally for DC, has a daughter named Harley Quinn, hosted a postcast called "Fatman on Batman", owns a comic book store, produces a TV show about said comic book store, directs episodes of The Flash, and is currently in bed with WB over an upcoming project, I'd say he's not exactly unbiased here.

By the way, there's WAY too much money for WB to walk away from DC properties. I do think you'll see their films become more successful now that they realize they've started off completely wrong and with the wrong tone. That trailer for Justice League is a great example. It's so easy to spot the parts written when they were still in the dark, "no jokes" mode, and which were new additions. Suicide Squad was made back when they had no sense of humor and there were reshoots after BvS got destroyed by critics and fans. Another example is Aquaman's script which was thrown out and completely re-written.

I have faith in Geoff Johns who WB put into the Kevin Feige position for them after the BvS flop. Johns is a really good writer and knows the material. He'll turn things around.

[Malcolm]

Can he manage all the whiny bitch prima donna directors and writers?

[Leisher]

He has handled all the whiny bitch prima donna writers and artists at DC, so there's hope.

[GORDON]

Kevin Smith lost me when he gave Attack of the Clones high praise.

[Leisher]

If I were being completely honest about Smith, I'd tell you to be suspicious of his politics as they are not his own, be suspicious of his movie reviews as he doesn't want to hurt anyone's feelings, but listen to his ideas on the industry because he's been something of a pioneer. (That last point is NOT about the quality of his movies.)

[Leisher]

This movie needs to make $800 million to be considered a success.

Not being played in the second largest market won't help.

[TheCatt]

Kevin Smith lost me when he tried to make movies.

[Malcolm]

This movie needs to make $800 million to be considered a success.

Not being played in the second largest market won't help.

So it needs Deadpool numbers?

[Malcolm]

So far, so good.

Suicide Squad’s $135.1 million trumps the $94.3 million previous August champ, Guardians of the Galaxy, grossed in 2014. The $175 million David Ayer-directed film, which also stars Margot Robbie, Jared Leto, and Viola Davis, amassed a further $132 million from 57 international territories for a worldwide haul of $267.1 million. IMAX numbers accounted for $18.2 million of Suicide Squad’s receipts, the strongest-ever August showing for the format.

On the other hand, it needs another $750M to hit the mythical $1B mark. It'll need 1-2 more weeks of powerhouse numbers before a drop happens.

[Leisher]

I expect the second weekend drop will be pretty significant. I don't think it'll get to $800 million. I predict $400-500 million. Remember, this was made back before BvS came out and WB/DC was stunned that people want good stories with good characters that are true to the source material. (They learned nothing from the Fantastic Four/Spider-Man lessons.) So all the humor you get came from the re-shoots. I've heard the movie is very dark in tone, ala BvS.

In other news, DC Fan boys have started a petition to get Rotten Tomatoes closed because "they keep giving DC Movies bad reviews". There's just so much stupid there...

[Malcolm]

Not looking good.

But foot traffic at theaters across the country fell off dramatically throughout Saturday. Revenue ended up being down 41 percent from Friday to Saturday, a huge decline.
...
Guardians of the Galaxy and Deadpool, from Fox and Marvel, are better comps for Suicide Squad, since all three are considered offbeat. Guardians declined 18 percent from Friday to Saturday; Deadpool, a phenomenal 10 percent. Tellingly, both those movies had exceptionally strong legs.
...
Marvel Studios' The Avengers earned an A+, followed by an A for Age of Ultron, while all three Captain America movies received a variation of an A. Marvel's first Thor movie received a B+, while the sequel earned an A-. Fox's X-Men: Apocalypse earned an A- earlier this summer and X-Men: Days of Future Past an A.

However, X-Men: First Class, which successfully rebooted the franchise but didn't do mega-business, earned a B+. Other superhero films earning some variation of a B include duds The Green Hornet (B+) and Elektra, Catwoman and Daredevil, all of which earned a B.

Ouch. Green Hornet-calibre?

[GORDON]

i PLAN ON SEEING IT THIS WEEK OR NEXT WEEKEND, PERSONALLY.

Stupid caps lock.

Is there anyone nearby who would want to sneak out for a matinee?

[Leisher]

Right now Thursday is a possibility. In fact, it's the only possibility. Let me get back to you.