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

4. The First Movie Was Five Years Ago (And Nobody Likes It)

margot robbie the suicide squad
Warner Bros.

In Hollywood, five years is an absolute age. It's the difference between Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer (2007) and The Avengers (2012). So much can change in that time, so it's generally more rewarding to strike while the iron is hot.

Though waiting a long time between sequels isn't necessarily a death sentence (hated it may be, but Indiana Jones 4 made almost $800 million worldwide), we've seen that gap spell doom for so many franchises over the last several years. The LEGO Movie was a hit in 2014... and its sequel was a flop in 2019. Pacific Rim did decent business in 2013... but Pacific Rim: Uprising was DOA in 2018.

Again, the first Suicide Squad came out in 2016, and even though it did well at the box-office, its reviews were terrible, and it isn't remembered fondly by fans. Five years later, all that's left is a bitter aftertaste.

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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.