Originally posted by NemeBro
I mean, we were still in COVID land at that time too. Even the MCU films sans Spider-man (which released at the very end of the year) underperformed by their standards (but still made more than Suicide Squad admittedly, at least partly due to the reasons outlined most likely).
COVID would be a factor from spring 2021 to Christmas, when Spider Man: No Way Home would bust the dam and made people feel good about going back to the movies, for sure. But it didn't stop other high profile films from grossing several times more than The Suicide Squad. Other MCU films that year - Black Widow, Shang Chi, Eternals - would get box office totals that would be disappointing in other years, but considered very good in the time of COVID.
And there were other Warner Bros. releases released before and after The Suicide Squad - Godzilla VS. Kong, Dune - that grossed 2-2 1/2 times as much as TSS, even though they started streaming on release as well.