Latest Bust of Hollywood's Brutal Summer: Ben-Hur

Meanwhile, remember how all the critics hated Suicide Squad? Yeah

By Polly Davis Doig, Newser Staff

Posted Aug 21, 2016 12:03 PM CDT

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Latest Bust of Hollywood's Brutal Summer: Ben-Hur — Rodrigo Santoro as Jesus in a scene from "Ben-Hur." The big-budget remake of ‘Ben-Hur’ was trampled under a herd of holdovers and new releases at the box office, the latest casualty in a bruising summer for Hollywood. (Philippe Antonello/Paramount Pictures via AP, File)

Critically maligned Suicide Squad is laughing all the way to the bank, blocking another remake from box office success to hang on to its No. 1 spot for a third week in a row. But it wasn't so much the success story that ruled the day as the utter failure of Ben-Hur to gain any traction, notes USA Today—or even, with $11.35 million in its fifth-place finish, to put much of a dent in its $100 million price tag. "This is the epic fail of the summer," says a box-office analyst. "This was pushed as a straight-up action film. They courted the Christian demographic too late." Also, a word to the wise: "Don't remake a film that won Best Picture. They still teach Ben-Hur in film school. Hopefully, this is a lesson for Hollywood." The winners and losers:

Suicide Squad, $20.7 million
Sausage Party, $15.3 million
War Dogs, $14.3 million
Kubo and the Two Strings, $12.6 million
Ben-Hur, $11.35 million

(Read more box office stories.)

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