The box office stories of the Summer Movie Season 2021™ have been giving film fans whiplash for weeks. One story talks about how “Black Widow” has a monster opening weekend and shows how cinema is rebounding after the pandemic. A week later, the film is viewed as an unmitigated disaster and Scarlett Johansson sues Disney. Last week, it was “The Suicide Squad” debuting well under expectations, showing how COVID is back and theaters are doomed. Oh, what a difference a week makes, as Ryan Reynolds’ “Free Guy” flips the script, yet again.
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In its first weekend, “Free Guy” exceeded expectations and debuted with an estimated domestic box office of $28.5 million. This is a film that is not based on established IP and isn’t a sequel, both a rarity for the Disney conglomerate, which includes this film’s 20th Century Studios. Optimists are pointing out how people are still willing to go to a brand-new blockbuster film during COVID and all that worry about Delta variant and vaccine mandates is hogwash. Of course, the cynic might look at how Ryan Reynolds worked overtime promoting the shit out of “Free Guy” (even busting out Deadpool for one ad), and perhaps, his star power and a good marketing campaign led to a decent opening. Either way, Disney is probably excited. (They’ve even apparently discussed sequels.)
Overseas, “Free Guy” pulled in another $22.5 million to bring its worldwide gross to $51 million after one weekend. Obviously, these aren’t numbers that are going to blow people away, but it is a solid opening for a film in the COVID era, so theaters and distributors are taking whatever win they can get.
One film that isn’t doing so hot is “The Suicide Squad.” After a lackluster opening last weekend, with only $26.5 million, James Gunn’s irreverent, R-rated superhero bloodbath fell a whopping -70% in its second frame, earning a dismal $7.75 million. A lot of words were written last week about the sad opening weekend, with some blaming the R-rating, some blaming the HBO Max day-and-date release, some looking at rising COVID numbers, and others thinking its a result of all of the above. However, no matter what expectations WarnerMedia and Warner Bros. had for the box office of “The Suicide Squad,” they probably weren’t expecting earning only $42.9 million after 10 days. That’s just not good.
The only other major openings this week were “Don’t Breathe 2,” which debuted at $10.5 million—not a terrible number for a low-budget, R-rated horror sequel—and “Respect” earning $8.8 million. Neither total is going to make people pop the champagne, but they’re not bad enough to get executives fired, either. So, in 2021, it’s kind of a win.
So, this week we’ve had yet another week that shows the rollercoaster nature of the summer box office. Clearly, cinemas haven’t fully recovered. And it’s also obvious that it’s going to take some serious marketing power to earn a respectable total at the box office. It’s a wild, somewhat terrifying time to release films, folks.
