Birds of Prey had a disastrous opening weekend. While it was #1 it only took in 60% of what it was expected to bring in ($30 million instead of $50 million). That's the lowest opening of a DC or Marvel movie. So what happened?
The trailers were a big, big problem. There were two official trailers. Here's the first, and the second. Watch them then, based only on what you saw in the trailers, tell me who the Birds of Prey are? What are their names. Do they have any powers. How many are there? Is this a superheros take down a bad guy movie or a heist movie?
If you are honest you can't answer any of those questions. All you know is that Harley Freak'n Quinn is in it, that she broke up with the Joker and got some allies to fight a bad guy who is after her some some reason. Plus there's some fight scenes and some singing.
So if your trailer isn't going to explain who the Birds of Prey are then why name the movie after them? DC realized that a few days after the movie opened and relabeled the movie "Harley Quinn:Birds of Prey".
From the trailer I assumed that Harley allied herself with a girl-gang of thieves or something. I was amazed when I read a review that said the Birds of Prey were good girls. Yes, I'm aware of the comic book and I watched the short-lived TV series but I thought they'd reused the name for different characters.
So that's problem number one and it's a big one.
Problem number two: Harley is a spin-off character. In fact she's a spin-off of a spin-off since she was created as the Joker's side-kick in Batman the Animated Series. It was only later that she made the jump to comic books. In the DCU she's a spin-off of Suicide Squad. Yes, when that movie came out she was considered the break-out star but, let's face it, Suicide Squad hasn't aged well. Now that Wonder Woman, Aquaman and Shazam showed that the SCU can have good movies, who needs a spin-off from one of their worst efforts? That was going to make the movie a tough sell regardless. It would have been better to hold the movie until the James Gunn Suicide Squad sequel comes out and, presumably, generates some good will for the characters.
Problem number three: It's rated R. A few comic book movies have been rated R and done well: Joker, Logan and Deadpool all made a ton of money with an R rating. But these were different. They were aimed at a different audience, particularly Joker which was separate from the comic books and Logan which was trying for a gritty, realistic feel. Birds of Prey is being marketed as an action film but it's lead character started out in a cartoon.
Quick, name one R-rated action movie about a bunch of girls with gratuitous violence. There have been a few in this category but they were flops.
This one is personal to me. I considered seeing it and skipped it because of the rating. Eventually I'll see it on TV where the violence will be cut back.
So, there's three reasons that BIrds of Prey failed to live up to expectations. You notice that none of these involved fanboys who can't stand to see strong women or any other reaction against the movie's wokeness. The movies was badly timed, the trailers didn't sell it and the R rating killed it. No other explanations are needed.
