'Suicide Squad'

When is a superhero movie like Game of Thrones? When it’s the most pirated movie of the year, of course. On a new list of all the movies downloaded from popular torrenting site BitTorrent, the merc with a mouth tops the chart over Batman v. Superman, Captain America: Civil War, and The Force Awakens.

The Internet Movie Database is a fount of helpful information. With a few simple clicks, users can learn who shot the Miley Cyrus vehicle So Undercover (Things to Come cinematographer Denis Lenoir), which sequel in the Hellraiser franchise featured a performance from a young Adam Scott (the fourth one), or how old Taraji P. Henson is (who looks that good at 46?!). As a repository for loose factoids from in and around the world of screen entertainment, it can’t be beat. As a source for critical perspectives on those same films, however... hoo boy. Just take a gander at any comment section for a movie’s page and marvel at the IMDb is the site where rabid anti-Ghostbusters zealots congregated to downvote Paul Feig’s movie into oblivion weeks before its actual release, and the newly-released IMDb Top 10 provides an even clearer view of its user base.

One of the more niche Oscar categories is Best Makeup and Hairstyling, which is one of those that gets awarded early on in the ceremony before any of the really big ones like Best Actress or Best Picture are announced at the very end. But sometimes it’s the technical categories that are the really interesting ones, and this year in particular saw a few very creative makeup design moves, especially when it came to superhero movies.

I’ll admit, I was one of those people mildly excited for Independence Day: Resurgence. Not only did the film return both Jeff Goldblum and Bill Pullman  —  as well as the up-and-coming Maika Monroe  —  it was also a welcome trip down memory lane to the original Independence Day, one of the first really big blockbuster movies I remember seeing in theaters. I know I’m not the only one whose interest in the film was pure nostalgia; as it turns out, this link to the past is exactly why Will Smith chose not to come back for a second film.

Listen, impressionable young men and women of the world, because this is important: you should not watch Suicide Squad and think that the Joker and Harley Quinn represent any kind of reasonable #RelationshipGoal. This is an abusive and possessive relationship, start to finish, and while there may be a more consensual love story scattered among the footage on the cutting room floor, we won’t know until we see it. This is a pretty important disclaimer to throw out there before we talk about this footage

Look, all things being equal, I really didn’t mind Jared Leto’s take on the Joker in Suicide Squad. Yes, the constant news items about what latest “crazy” thing he did to get in character were pretty annoying, and yes, the number of people who seem to think that Joker and Harley Quinn’s relationship is something to emulate is downright disturbing, but Leto seemed like a perfect fit for the gloomy and angst-ridden universe that Warner Bros. has created for its DC Comics characters. At another studio, he’d be woefully out of place. In this one? He’s fine.

For an actor whose superhero prospects haven’t always been stellar, Nicolas Cage sure does love superhero movies. His role as Big Daddy in Kick-Ass was the most positively received, but critics and audiences alike were lukewarm-to-cold on his Johnny Blaze in the Ghost Rider movies (Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is actually a good movie, okay). Cage isn’t salty about it though, revealing that he really did enjoy this year’s three most recent superhero movies (minus Doctor Strange).

Well, we were all clamoring for it. Or, somebody was. Regardless, there’s an extended cut Blu-ray of Suicide Squad coming out, with many more minutes featuring the antics of the Worst. Superheroes. Ever. Warner Bros. just released a trailer for the upcoming release, with a few shots we haven’t seen before in other trailers or the movie itself.

Viral marketing is a pretty hit or miss business. Hollywood’s current king of viral campaigns, Ridley Scott, has lured audiences to his films by putting out video campaigns before his movies — before Prometheus, he released a few “ads” for Michael Fassbender’s David android, and ahead of The Martian’s premiere last year Scott’s team created a YouTube channel full of video diaries from the crew of the Ares III. Viral campaigns are designed to tease out interest in their films by providing the future audience with little bits and pieces of what they’ll see when they make it to the theater. The latest campaign, strangely enough, comes from Suicide Squad, which launched an odd little website today designed to let fans of the film click around “classified” documents and hunt for clues about the DC cinematic universe.

September has arrived and this notoriously slow month at the movies often spells instant death for new releases. It certainly meant on a dead-on-arrival start for The Light Between Oceans and it spelled total disaster for Morgan, which debuted at number 17 on the box office charts despite being released into more than 2,000 theaters. But this week isn’t all doom and gloom! This slow week gave some much-needed breathing room to a few August releases while allowing Don’t Breathe to have a strong second weekend at the box office.

In a summer filled with misfires and box office disappointments, the horror genre has kept its head above the water. The Conjuring 2 crossed the $100 million mark. Lights Out was a gigantic sleeper hit. And now, Don’t Breathe has closed out August with a surprising bang, dethroning Suicide Squad with a very strong opening weekend.

It doesn't sound like Jared Leto is happy at all with the final Suicide Squad product.