The Projector #94: “What Have We Learned, Palmer?,” SUICIDE SQUAD Edition (Patreon)

by Keith Phipps

I’m writing this early on a Sunday afternoon, a time when those who care about such things spend some time hashing out the results of the weekend’s box office. And the totals are in: The Suicide Squad, James Gunn’s sequel(ish) follow-up to the 2016 film Suicide Squad dramatically underperformed at the box office. Everyone agrees on that. But no one agrees on why.

Was it because it was R-rated? That it did not, unlike the original, feature Will Smith? That it was too similar in title to Suicide Squad? That the 2016 film, though financially successful, was not widely loved? Was it that viewers opted instead to watch it on HBO Max, where it premiered simultaneously? Was it the delta variant-stoked increase in Covid-19 cases? All of the above? None of the above?

The truth is, nobody knows. And if The Suicide Squad never looked like a sure thing, it also didn’t look like a tremendous risk. It’s the work of a director who’s enjoyed prior success bringing misfit superhero types to the big screen given all the promotional muscle of a major studio.

We’re living in a moment when all the usual rules have gone out the window. Even factoring out the pandemic… Actually, scratch that. You can’t factor out the pandemic. It’s turned everything upside down when it comes to movies. If I had to offer an opinion on what happened here, I think it has everything to do with the pandemic. When my friend Mike Ryan from Uproxx said as much on Twitter, someone countered with the money earned by F9, which was released on June 25th, less than two months ago. Mike countered by pointing out that new cases per day have increased tenfold since then.

So what does punditry get us? At this point, who knows? Maybe people didn’t want to see Suicide Squad. Maybe they’re scared. That’s where my head’s at, anyway. I haven’t seen it yet, but I do plan to catch up with it. At home, where it seems like I’m probably going to do much of my movie-watching again.

Ugh. Sorry to be a bummer two weeks in a row, but such are the times. We’ll have something more lighthearted next week. Maybe a ranking of movies about clowns? Like, A Thousand Clowns, It, and The Day the Clown Cried? Nope. Terrible idea. And while we’re still sorting out whether or not we should go full quarantainment again, we hope you’ll enjoy our latest episode covering Roadrunner and our upcoming medieval romance pairing. We’ll have links to those and other good reads next week. (I’m packing up to go out of town, and the rest of my family is getting impatient.) Oh, and if you want to stay ahead of our bonus episodes, which will be TV-centered for a few installments, catch up with The White Lotus (that episode’s up) and Ted Lasso (coming soon). See you next time.