8 Reasons Why The Suicide Squad Just Bombed At The Box-Office

7. Sequel, Reboot, Remake, Or Spinoff?

margot robbie the suicide squad
Warner Bros.

Online film fans often forget that we're in the minority when it comes to cinema-going. Sure, we all knew that The Suicide Squad was partly a sequel to the 2016 film, and partly a full-on reboot of this property. But you can understand why general audiences might've been confused about what exactly this movie was.

As awesome as the trailers were, they didn't really do a good job of explaining the connection (or lack thereof) between the two movies. Oh look, there's Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn! She was in that other one. But wait, where's Will Smith? Did they recast him with Idris Elba? And do I need to see the first movie before watching this one?

Obviously, this is a minor issue in the grand scheme of things. But when you learn that the "The" in The Suicide Squad was actually suggested as a joke, it's clear that Gunn and the studio didn't give much thought about how they presented the movie to people other than hardcore fans.

It feels like an in-joke that 99% of moviegoers won't get.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for almost nine years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. He has been writing and video editing for 10+ years, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers and uploading them to YouTube (they're admittedly a bit rusty by today's standards). If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order or to tell you about the making of 1988's Remembrance of the Daleks, Danny is the person to ask.