One of this summer’s biggest box office successes, The Suicide Squad, will be available for streaming in the UK next week, earlier than expected – but as a Premium Rental, for now.
The Suicide Squad was released in UK cinemas on July 30, 2021 – a week before its US release.
In the US, however, the film was also available for streaming on HBO Max, for no extra cost to existing subscribers – on the same day and date as its theatrical release.
The Suicide Squad, directed and written by James Gunn (of Guardians of The Galaxy fame), is a reboot of the franchise (a previous Suicide Squad was released back in 2016, and was a failure with the critics, though it did OK in the box office).
This new version stars Margot Robbie (Birds of Prey, Bombshell), Idris Elba (Avengers: Infinity War), John Cena (Bumblebee), Joel Kinnaman (the original Suicide Squad), Jai Courtney (Divergent franchise) and Peter Capaldi (Doctor Who).
The film sees the government creating the most dangerous supervillain group in the world, for a mission on a remote island: Bloodsport, Peacemaker, King Shark, Harley Quinn and others, are armed with high-tech weapons, as they trek through the dangerous jungle on a search-and-destroy mission, with only Col. Rick Flag on the ground to make them behave.
The Suicide Squad gained high praise (it currently has a rating of 91% on Rotten Tomatoes), and was a box office success (as a film released during the pandemic years), also topping the UK cinema box-office for two weeks.
The Suicide Squad Comes To Streaming
The Suicide Squad will be available as a Premium VOD Rental in the UK on September 6, on some of the leading UK streaming services.
It will cost £15.99. This is similar to the cost of other premium rentals, such as Wonder Woman 1984 earlier this year (but cheaper than premier rentals on Disney+, which cost £19.99).
As with all their video rentals, once you start playing it, you will only have 48 hours to complete your watching.
The film is expected to be available on the Amazon Prime Video store, as well as on the Google Play Store, and other streaming video stores.
While still more than a month after the film’s theatrical release (in the UK), it is still much earlier than films of the past, where it used to take several months before films transfered from movie theatres to home entertainment.
If you want to buy digital version of the film, it will be available for Digital Download in the UK on October 25.
Then, on November 8, it will be released in the UK on 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD, with a long list of extra features, such as deleted scenes, a gag reel and making-of documentaries.
And finally, at some point, the film will most likely arrive on one of the major streaming service in the UK at no extra cost – but that will not happen, most likely, before November at the earliest.
In the US, the film is available on HBO Max, which includes shows and films from DC, Universal Pictures, WarnerBros and others.
A subscription to HBO Max currently costs $14.99/month, but it’s only available in the US (unless you use a VPN).
What about Amazon Prime seducing viewers into free teaser episodes of TV series e.g. “Above Suspicion” I watched the first two episodes of series one and then later first episode of series 2. Returned to Amazon Prime last night to watch episode 2 but was asked to subscribe to Acorn TV. Is this a con???