Warner Bros. needs a win for the DC Extended Universe, and it looks like Suicide Squad may deliver a big one. Early projections indicate that the film could set an August record by bringing in between $100 million to $125 million, according to Variety.
We’re still more than three weeks out from the opening of the superhero flick, but pre-release tracking suggests that fans are curious to see a villainous gang tasked with saving the day. The film brings together an ensemble cast full of big names playing familiar comic book characters, including Will Smith as Deadshot, Jared Leto as the Joker, and Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, not to mention an appearance from Ben Affleck as Batman. Together, they could overtake a record set by Guardians of the Galaxy in 2014 when the film opened to $94.32 million, according to Box Office Mojo data.
At this point, however, it is hard to say what the box office picture will actually look like come August. As Variety points out, reviews for the film may ultimately influence whether or not moviegoers show up. Let’s not forget that the most recent DCEU film, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, was predicted to be a box office hit; while its opening was impressive, the film’s box office earnings dropped off sharply in subsequent weeks as fans and critics alike proved to be largely unimpressed.
With Suicide Squad, Warner Bros. is hoping for a much different trajectory than it saw with Batman v Superman. In fact, the studio even reportedly ordered Suicide Squad reshoots to try to avoid a similar fate. If the cinematic universe hopes to compete with Marvel’s, it needs the numbers to back it up.
Suicide Squad, which is written and directed by David Ayer, hits theaters on August 5.
China just gave Hollywood a cautionary tale about AI filmmaking. Sanxingdui: Future Past, billed as the country's first fully AI-generated movie, hit theaters on October 23 and bombed at the box office.
According to Futurism, the film's reported $1.5 million production budget landed on more than 10,000 screens. Yet it pulled in only about $181,000, averaging roughly $20 per screen, making the budget difficult to recover.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?