Where superhero movies are concerned, you should never trust a critic. When David Ayer's "Suicide Squad" opened to a barrage of negative press in the U.S. earlier this month, some fans responded by lashing out at film journalists online. One even launched a petition against the review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, for what he claimed was a bias against films featuring characters from the DC Comics stable.
For a brief moment, too, it looked like the critics had landed on the wrong side of the debate. While "Suicide Squad" is currently averaging 27 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, the film's strong U.S. box-office performance during its first week on release suggested that it may prove the haters wrong. However, a 67 percent drop during its second weekend has put it back in line with the trajectory of Zack Snyder's "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice," its immediate predecessor in the so-called DC Extended Universe.
Snyder's film was supposed to help jump-start the Warner Bros.-owned DC franchise, making the company a viable contender to Disney's Marvel Studios, which produces the "Avengers" and "Captain America" movies. Its lackluster reception earlier this year prompted a shake-up at Warner, which created a separate DC Films division to ensure a more unified approach in its superhero properties from now on.