Box Office Week: Suicide Squad is #1 again $20.7 mil. In new releases it's all dire. War Dogs comes in at #3 with $14.3 mil. Kubo and the Two Strings had worst opening ever for Laika, opening at #4 with $12.6 mil. And Ben-Hur is most predictable flop of the year, opening at #5 with $11.3 mil.

Rank	Title	Domestic Gross (Weekend)	Worldwide Gross (Cume)	Week #
1	Suicide Squad	$20,710,000	$572,683,335	3
2	Sausage Party	$15,325,000	$71,326,019	2
3	War Dogs	$14,300,000	$20,800,000	1
4	Kubo and the Two Strings	$12,610,000	$13,510,000	1
5	Ben-Hur (2016)	$11,350,000	$22,050,000	1

*Notable Box Office Stories: *

• Once again Suicide Squad was #1 for the week more by default than sterling victory. Perhaps the best comparison would be Deadpool, which similarly opened around $130 mil but by its third weekend was pulling $31 mil compared to Squad's $20.7 mil weekend haul. Still despite its intense drop-off, Suicide Squad's initial domestic push and decent international sales has pushed it into the top 10 for 2016, passing X-Men: Apocalypse's lifetime gross in just 3 weeks. The future is pretty open for Suicide Squad, with no major competition till maybe Blair Witch in September (we are entering the slow months folks). Right now its all up to Suicide Squad's legs and those seem to look worse with each passing day.

• Seems the Todd Phillips magic that made The Hangover Trilogy and Due Date breakout successes couldn't be recaptured for War Dogs which opened to $14.5 mil at #3, coming in under the second weekend of fellow R-rated comedy Sausage Party. The dark comedy about war profiteers wasn't exactly looking for a record breaking weekend but it still managed to come in far under the $20 mil hopes from the studio. The film received a pretty low B rating on Cinemascore which will likely mean this film may not even have enough legs to domestically pass its mid-level $40 mil budget. Internationally the film has made $6.5 mil, a modest minor haul that may improve when it opens in a few more select markets to come. This film should limp its way to around $50 - $60 mil, but will unlikely become the next big Phillips cultural hit.

• Poor, poor Laika. Despite consistent good reviews and Oscar nominations Laika has never been a money-maker, especially not Kubo and the Two Strings which represented the worst Laika premiere yet opening at $12.6 mil at #4. Not only did Kubo receive the best reviews of the company's career, it also has a fantastic A rating on Cinemascore which unfortunately doesn't mean much when you open so low. It's hard to say why a company like Laika that consistently makes well reviewed films just can't get the audiences of a Pixar or even an Aardmann. Of course the classic "bad marketing" will always be the boogeyman, but in my opinion Kubo had the best marketing push of any Laika film. Could be Laika's films are too dark for children and too light for teens and adults. Or could be traditional stop-motion just doesn't have a place in modern cinema these days compared to digital animation and occasionally claymation. As it stands Kubo will be lucky to even pass its low (for animation) $60 mil budget worldwide, despite the inevitable Oscar nomination.

• Oh Ben-Hur, why oh why do you exist? In a performance that shocked no one, the Ben-Hur remake flopped abysmally, opening at #5 to $11.3 mil. The film felt like the most likely flop of the summer and has proved it in spades, marking an even worse opening for director Timur Bekmambetov than his last flop Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (which opened to $16 mil). Even before it opened the film was looking at a $100 mil loss for Paramount who's also massively suffering from the not as bad but still underwhelming performances of Star Trek Beyond and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows. Despite getting awful critical reviews the film actually managed to score a very good A- rating on Cinemascore but as I said earlier that doesn't really matter much with an opening this low. Ben-Hur's only hope now is that its rebranded more-Christian heavy marketing might strike a cord with international audiences. The film did open to a fairly decent $2.8 mil in Mexico and $2.5 mil in Brazil, where the marketing has almost entirely been focused on Rodrigo Santoro's portrayal of Jesus. Still unless a miracle happens don't expect Ben-Hur to even pass its budget let alone get anywhere near the $300 - $400 mil it would need to be profitable.

Films Reddit Wants to Follow

This is a segment where we keep a weekly tally of currently showing films that aren't in the Top 5 that fellow redditors want updates on. If you'd like me to add a film to this chart, make a comment in this thread.

Title	Domestic Gross (Cume)	Worldwide Gross (Cume)	Budget	Week #
The Jungle Book (2016)	$363,229,023	$955,529,023	$175 mil	19
Captain America: Civil War	$407,709,965	$1,152,304,004	$250 mil	16
Finding Dory	$478,476,164	$915,676,164	$200 mil	10
Ghostbusters (2016)	$123,960,434	$208,160,434	$144 mil	6
Star Trek Beyond	$146,931,370	$231,131,370	$185 mil	4

Notable Film Closings

Title	Domestic Gross (Cume)	Worldwide Gross (Cume)	Budget
Warcraft	$47,225,655	$433,537,548	$160 mil
Me Before You	$56,245,075	$194,345,075	$20 mil
The Purge: Election Year	$79,042,440	$102,342,440	$10 mil

As always /r/boxoffice is a great place to share links and other conversations about box office news.

Also you can see the archive of all Box Office Week posts a /r/moviesboxoffice.

Submitted August 22, 2016 at 11:19PM by mi-16evil http://ift.tt/2buC7vc