'The Suicide Squad' failed at the box office. Anti-vaxxers own a lot of the blame.
Here we go again.
Just when it seemed like Hollywood was successfully creeping back to theaters, a resurgent COVID-19 is here to smack us back into the grim reality of a debilitating pandemic. The Suicide Squad, which opened Friday, earned around $27 million in North America โ a low number for a star-studded DC superhero movie directed by Guardians of the Galaxy mastermind James Gunn. Especially given the stellar reviews from critics and audiences alike.
We can't discount other factors that may have been at play, of course. The Suicide Squad started streaming for HBO Max's ad-free subscribers the same day it hit theaters, and it did quite well there. Maybe some people were also turned off by the R-rating, or the uneven quality of DC Comics movies from Warner Bros., especially since the unconnected 2016 take on Suicide Squad was such a mess.
But let's be real, folks: People are scared. The same loud-mouthed anti-vax movement in the U.S. that's fueled embarrassingly low vaccination rates in some parts of the country, and in the process helped COVID's Delta variant gain a foothold, carries most of the responsibility for any disruption to our stumbling recovery.
I'd say that's the main reason why theaters didn't fill up for The Suicide Squad the way they did for F9 and Black Widow. The fear is back. After a hopeful stretch of weeks, grim headlines and rising case numbers are influencing consumer behavior, even though returning lockdowns and mask mandates are still a scattered patchwork of city- and county-level decisions.
Theater chains should move to immediately institute vaccine mandates, with proof required.
https://mashable.com/article/suicide-squad-box-office-anti-vaxxers-covid-delta
There it is. From here on out shit films will have an excuse for poor performance.