New Suicide Squad trailer

[Q99]

Yea, if it's the latter, then they'll get high openings/consistent falls repeatedly which, while not ideal, is acceptable and profit-making to the studios. No MCU, but money is money.

If it's the former or the latter and the devoted fans fade, they're really in trouble.

[Lost Soal]

Except its not profit making, there was a report which had "insiders" saying it needs $750-$800m to break even. They are spending ludicrous amounts of money on these things then immediately panicking when test audiences don't like something, even though at least half were probably never going to watch the movie normally.

[Majin Gojira]

Rewatching "Mad Love" recently really hammered home just how off this version of Harley and the Joker were.

Off in what way?

The same way all the other DC characters are "off" in these movies: they're not subjectively perfect adaptations of their favorite versions.

Actually, it was more . . . forgetting just how abusive the Harley/Joker relationship was. I mean, it was there in the opening, but beyond that they were played like they were actually in love, rather than the Joker using her as a convenient means to an end and her being obsessed with him thanks to his manipulations of her.

It's like . . . forgetting that Romeo and Juliet are not a romantic ideal.

That and dumbing Harley down that much. She really, really needed some proper scenes of psychological manipulation. We got the hollowed shells of them, but just like the line "I love your perfume, what is it? The acrid smell of death?" it showed an understanding of the complexities and 'darkness' of the character about as well as the 40 year old manager of a Hot Topic.

To paraphrase.

Edit to add:
Ironically, they adapted a Brian Azzarello version of the Joker and Harley pretty directly for the screen. Which, in combination with Azzarello's turn on the Killing Joke film is rather . . ..well, they did end up garnering the same type of reaction.

[Kane Starkiller]

I find it interesting that the mysterious insider reports that a movie actually needs 54 billion dollars to be successful appear only if there is a significant discrepancy between critical reviews and the box office performance.
I don't remember any reports that Captain America:First Avenger lost money when it earned $370 million on a $140 million budget or that Star Trek 2009 was a bomb when it earned $385 million on a $150 million budget.

But now suddenly a $175 million dollar movie that earned $460 million in 10 days is losing money!

[Crazedwraith]

I know there are lot of hinkey things that can happen with reported budgets and sales required to break even. That might not include the cost of advertising and reshoots and things. Isn't twice the budget before you're in profit the rule of thumb or something?

Though SS is in profit by that count. It does seem like a weird claim.

[Dominus Atheos]

Two things:

1. That's not including money spent on advertising or distribution.

2. That's the gross receipts, the movie theaters keep about half of that.

[Kane Starkiller]

Sure but that goes for any movie. And usually the rule of thumb is box office/2-budget. Except when 250 critics on RottenTomatoes are not in sync with box office numbers. Then it's a conspiracy going all the way to the White House.

I mean if a studio is going to lie it's going to inflate the budget to pay less taxes.

[streetad]

Why was Harley in the squad, she isnt a meta human... shes a crazy with a baseball bat.

Out of the whole squad, only Diablo and maybe Killer Croc could in any way be described as metahuman. The others (apart from Deadshot because of his unique skills) were all of extremely debatable value compared to a normal soldier.

I suppose that's a problem with the whole concept rather than the film itself...

[Majin Gojira]

Why was Harley in the squad, she isnt a meta human... shes a crazy with a baseball bat.

Out of the whole squad, only Diablo and maybe Killer Croc could in any way be described as metahuman. The others (apart from Deadshot because of his unique skills) were all of extremely debatable value compared to a normal soldier.

I suppose that's a problem with the whole concept rather than the film itself...

Pretty much.

In the comics, it makes sense, because Harley is a trained psychologist whose unique perspectives and cunning allow her to survive possibly the most dangerous thing for a normal human to begin with -- being in close proximity to the Joker over an extended period of time.

That and, depending on the continuity, she can physically keep up with some of the best athletes and martial artists on the planet (She's like in the top 50 or so DC wise) -- or a full on Metahuman who is immune to various poisons and toxins with basically near peak human-level physical abilities. Because Poison Ivy wanted to be able to get close to Harley and not kill her.

But the movie scrapped basically all of that, so yeah, there is no reason for her to be there.

[The Romulan Republic]

Well, she still has the psychologist background, but she never used it much, if at all.

[momochan]

Out of the whole squad, only Diablo and maybe Killer Croc could in any way be described as metahuman. The others (apart from Deadshot because of his unique skills) were all of extremely debatable value compared to a normal soldier.

I hear you. If you talk about physical firepower alone, one El Diablo plus a bunch of impressive individuals equals one El Diablo.

However, I saw the inclusion of v1.0 humans into the team as clever manipulation on the part of Amanda Waller. El Diablo absolutely refused to flex his firepower, until he came to feel that he was doing it for the team he had grown to care about. So you could say that Harley -- kissing El Diablo on the cheeck, validating his non-normalcy in the bar, etc. -- directly contributed to the success of the team, if only by activating its strongest member.

I doubt that Waller could have been certain beforehand that the team would gell like that -- but it's certain that El Diablo alone would not have cooperated.

[Simon_Jester]

Another issue is that if you don't know exactly what skills a team will need, it is unwise to only bring in heavy hitters. For example, suppose that in the original Avengers movie the team had consisted solely of the big guns- Iron Man, Hulk, and Thor. All of them would happily have gone in to fight the aliens in Manhattan. But they'd have been so busy doing that that no one would have been available to keep an eye on the overall tactical situation, and no one would have been in a position to close the portal.

Nor could those jobs have been foisted off on a random sidekick, because there were alien mooks flying around and you need team members who are at least tough enough to survive contact with the mooks.

Likewise, depending on the situation, you may need a team that can split up (having only one powerful guy is not a good thing). Or a team that can tactically think through a situation (you need an experienced tactician, or at least a group of people who can talk about the plan). Or a team that can sneak into a place and sneak back out without causing mass destruction (the sort of thing that high-powered hard-hitting metahumans usually do NOT excel at).

[momochan]

As far as the relationship between Harley and "Mr. J", it looked to me as though Mr. J ended up falling very hard for her, to the point that he is willing to go out on a limb (dressed in a tuxedo no less).
As he said, "surrender becomes power", so her surrender to him had the effect of enamouring him to her. Perhaps it's a psychological gambit that she is taking.
The upshot is - now there is some leverage that could work on him.
Speaking of Mr. J, did anyone else notice the baby clothes in the upper right, on the edge of the ring of weapons that surrounded him on the floor?