The new Warner Bros and DC superhero film "Suicide Squad II" topped the North American box office over the weekend, but with a gross of just $ 26.6 million amid renewed fears about the pandemic.
The film, considered a pseudo-sequel to the 2016 smash hit "Suicide Squad," again featured stars Margot Robbie and Viola Davis, but two big names from the previous version, Will Smith and Jared Leto, were left out.
The simultaneous release of the film on HBO Max further affected its theatrical earnings.
Hollywood is struggling to return to pre-pandemic levels. "This is a relentless market," David Gross, director of consultancy Franchise Entertainment Research, told Variety magazine.
Last week's box office leader, Disney's family adventure film “Jungle Cruise,” fell to second place, grossing $ 15.7 million between the Friday and Sunday period, less than half of its total.
Based on a 1950s amusement park, the film stars Emily Blunt and Dwayne
Johnson, along with British actor Jack Whitehall.
In third place was the psychological thriller "Old" from Universal, with 4.1 million dollars.
In it, Gael García Bernal, Vicky Krieps and Rufus Sewell star in M. Night Shyamalan's story about family members who are trapped on a beach where they begin to age precipitously.
Fourth, for the second week in a row, was the Disney Marvel superhero movie “Black Widow,” starring Scarlett Johansson, which grossed $ 4 million.
The film now racks in $ 174 million, surpassing Universal's “F9: The Fast Saga” as the highest-grossing film in North America so far this year.
And in fifth place was the film "Stillwater" by Focus Features, starring Matt Damon, with 2.9 million dollars.
Damon plays a burly American oil worker who travels to France to help her estranged daughter (Abigail Breslin) when she is imprisoned for a murder he says she did not commit.
Completing the top 10 are:
- "The Green Knight", 2.6 million dollars
- "Space Jam: A New Legacy", 2.5 million dollars
- "Snake Eyes," $ 1.6 million
- "Escape Room 2," $ 1.3 million
- "F9: The Fast Saga" ("Fast and furious 9"), 1.2 million dollars