Free Guy Debuts To $28M, Suicide Squad Drops To $7M In US
According to Deadline, Free Guy opened at number 1 with $28 million in its first three days, opening above expectations which had it pegged to open at around $15 million. The other two new releases, Don’t Breathe 2 and Respect opened at the number 2 spot with $10.6 million and number 4 spot with $8.8 million, respectively. Jungle Cruise held the number 3 spot with $9 million to a domestic total of $82 million. Last week’s number 1 film, The Suicide Squad, fell 70% this weekend to round out the top 5 with $7.8 million bringing its domestic total to $42.8 million.
Free Guy’s success can be attributed to a number of factors. The film saw a bump in sales number on Saturday, suggesting good word of mouth got audiences out to the theater. It also is playing exclusively in theaters for 45 days, whereas The Suicide Squad gave audiences the option to see it in theaters or at home on HBO Max. The theatrically exclusive window paid off for films like A Quiet Place: Part II and F9 and bodes well for Marvel Studios Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Likewise, The Suicide Squad’s massive drop follows a similar pattern to films like Mortal Kombat, Space Jam: A New Legacy, and Black Widow that were made available to stream at home on the same day as the theatrical release.
The box office won’t be the end of the story for The Suicide Squad, as Warner Bros. will determine its level of success based on streaming numbers as well. It does speak highly of Free Guy and what it meant to audiences. While a lot of films are sure-fire hits, sometimes the biggest success is the ones that feel like the biggest risk. The breakout films of the summer tend to be films nobody saw coming that offered something new and unexpected. Iron Man, Guardians of Galaxies, Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl are just a few films that opened in crowded summers and were far from sure bets, but they offered audiences something new and that paid off for them as they became massive hits. Free Guy was an original film, which is something that audiences were looking for at this particular moment in time.
