Warner Bros. bracing for 'tough' quarter after Suicide Squad underperforms

Warner Bros. says Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League has "fallen short" of its expectations after less than three weeks on shelves.

Rocksteady's squad-based shooter launched on February 2, 2024, but according to Warner Bros. Discovery chief financial officer Gunnar Wiedenfels has struggled to build sales momentum.

As reported by IGN, Wiedenfels shared the tidbit during a recent earnings call but failed to report any concrete sales figures.

"This year, Suicide Squad, one of our key video game releases in 2024, has fallen short of our expectations since its release earlier in the quarter, setting our games business up for a tough year-over-year comp in Q1," he said.

Suicide Squad's difficult production

Suicide Squad's development troubles are well documented. As noted by Bloomberg, the title was originally slated to launch in 2022 but eventually slipped to 2023. It was then delayed again after a gameplay showcase was met with criticism, with an anonymous source claiming the studio needed to add polish.

Discussing its financials for the fourth-quarter ended December 31, 2023, Warner Bros. said that game revenues "increased meaningfully" due to the continued performance of Hogwarts Legacy.

Those numbers, of course, don't account for the Q1 launch of Suicide Squad and it seems Warner Bros. is bracing itself for a downturn after one of it's major releases failed to win over players.