THE WEEKEND ACTUALS

	Film	Weekend	Opening Weekend	Current Gross
	Suicide Squad	$133.682 million	$133.682 million	$133.682 million
	Jason Bourne	$22.405 million	$59.215 million	$103.111 million
	Bad Moms	$14.004 million	$23.817 million	$50.850 million
	The Secret Life of Pets	$11.500 million	$104.352 million	$319.519 million
	Star Trek Beyond	$10.036 million	$59.253 million	$127.737 million

At the start of the weekend, Suicide Squad looked like it was going to shatter its estimated opening weekend by taking in between $145 and $150 million domestically. But when the final numbers came in, it turned out to make exactly what people had predicted: $133.6 million. While still a respectable number, shattering the record for biggest August opening (previously held by Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy at $94 million), it’s telling that the film suffered from such a sharp decline over the course of three days. It dropped 40 percent from Friday to Saturday, taking in $65 million at the end of the week and only bringing in $38.8 million the following day. It then dropped a further 21.7 percent on Sunday. These are much steeper day-to-day drops than what its predecessor, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, suffered earlier this year (38 percent from Friday to Saturday and 33 percent from Saturday to Sunday). However, what will reveal everything will be this upcoming weekend — BvS dropped nearly 70 percent in its second weekend and with the bad reviews for Suicide Squad and the fact that the dedicated fans determined to defend it from critics have likely seen the film already, it doesn’t bode well that many people will be checking it out in its sophomore outing.

$133 million is nothing to sneer at (especially not when added to its impressive $133 million international haul), and it’s an easy number to bring up if Warner Bros. goes on the defensive for this film, but it does give reason to pause. If Suicide Squad isn’t able to reach the magic $1 billion mark, as BvS wasn’t able to do, should the studio start re-considering things? Many signs pointed to exactly that after BvS’ poor performance, but now with Suicide Squad likely going in the same direction, it’s hard to tell. Warner Bros. has much of the universe’s future already mapped out, now the question remains of whether or not they’ll stubbornly fall on their own sword, or make some changes.

As predicted, Jason Bourne easily soared into second place, taking in $22.4 million over the weekend. It suffered a drop of 62 percent from its opening weekend, which is between 10 and 20 percent more than any of the franchise’s previous films, but this is probably due entirely to Suicide Squad’s release. With so many people going to see the DC films, the rest of the box office was bound to take some hits, however small. Jason Bourne has nearly made $200 million globally, easily passing its $120 million budget, so regardless of its second weekend drop, it can’t be considered a failure for Universal at all. It’s already poised to overtake last summer’s comparable film, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, which took $195 million domestically at the end of its run. But that film also had an impressive overseas performance, earning $487 million at the international box office, and it will be an interesting match-up to see if Jason Bourne can perform similarly overseas.

Suicide Squad didn’t deliver a blow to every film over the weekend, though. Bad Moms took in a decent $14 million, proving that there’s an audience who might not be as interested in the big, action blockbusters of the same and are just craving a raunchy laugh instead. It fell 41 percent from its first to second weekend, which is both a little better and a little worse than other R-rated comedy drops. It might be able to stick around for one weekend more in the top five, but then it will find itself sitting in the 6 – 10 spots.

One of the biggest surprises of the weekend was The Secret Life of Pets’ slip into the fourth spot, beating Star Trek Beyond by $1.5 million. With the success the animated film has found so far in the summer, it’s not a complete jaw-dropper, but it’s been in theaters for a considerably longer time than Star Trek Beyond. Likely, it’s more a combination of factors against Star Trek that caused these box office numbers, rather than anything new that could be said about Pets. Based on numbers, Star Trek wasn’t able to compete with Jason Bourne and Suicide Squad for action blockbusters, and due to when it was released, Star Trek never really stood a chance — but hindsight is 20/20 and all that. Star Trek only had one weekend to itself before Bourne and Suicide Squad came in and pulled the rug out from under the sci-fi film. It’s a shame, because Star Trek is a genuinely fun summer film, and a huge improvement from Star Trek Into Darkness. It is dropping far more than its two predecessors and that does not bode well.

Sitting at an abysmal 4 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, Nine Lives took in its predicted $6 million, and that is the best it will do during its entire duration in theaters. The film focuses on Kevin Spacey, an absent father who gets turned into a cat to learn some family morals, has not been a hit with critics at all, and clearly audiences weren’t all that into the idea as well. Frankly, who can blame them? Many people couldn’t even believe this was a real film when trailers started to surface, and the apprehension never went away as its premiere date got closer and closer. Well, now it’s here and everyone’s spoken their mind — this film shouldn’t have even received one life.

The remaining four films landing in the top ten for the weekend were Lights Out (taking in $6 million), Nerve ($4.8 million), Ghostbusters ($4.6 million), and Ice Age: Collision Course ($4.3 million). Ghostbusters is steadily approaching $200 million globally (it’s at about $180 million right now), which is a good thing for Sony Pictures, even if it’s not quite the juggernaut numbers the studio was hoping for. Still, there’s something to be said for merchandise with a film like Ghostbusters and how that could be playing into the film’s favors. Overall, with all the top films, this was the most impressive this particular August weekend has ever performed in cinematic history. It made $223.9 million from the top twelve films — the first time this weekend has ever crossed the $200 million threshold. So hey, at least Suicide Squad has that going for it.

There are three new wide-release films opening this weekend, all very different and all generally receiving good reviews: Pete’s Dragon, Sausasge Party, and Florence Foster Jenkins, and they should all make  some waves in the box office world.

(Source: boxoffice.com, boxofficemojo.com. Figures represent numbers at time of writing, and may have changed.)

Anya Crittenton | Associate Editor