So Birds of Prey was a bit of a box office downer.
Which seems like a bit of a surprise because on top of a slow box office, a popular character and great to good reviews & word of mouth- you think this would have been a slam dunk. You’d think it would have at least hit the bottom of estimates…
I think there is a lot going on here. Marketing wasn’t great- I mean I follow this stuff am a huge Harley fan and until a couple weeks ago I thought this film was coming out this weekend. They pushed the Galentine’s Day angle- and really they should have.
I’m not ready to write Harley off until this weekend. I think there could be a strong hold- even a rally. (But if it drops off yeah- there are bigger problems.)
A part of me does wonder here when I’m thinking of myself or reading other bloggers or even daring to annoy myself by reading Twitter… We aren’t generally the general movie-going audience that a successful film needs to appeal to and win over.
There’s an argument that they should have called this Harley Quinn and the Birds of Prey (maybe) but in the marketing I did see it wasn’t like Harley was ever playing second fiddle. Hell I saw ads that were straight up, “Harley Quinn in Birds of Prey,” like she was Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible or something.
So it’s a question they’ll need to think about going forward. It hurts my Harley loving heart to have to seriously wonder… is she as popular to the general audience as I like to think she is?
Regardless I think with the right push and material she certainly can be as popular.
I think the R rating is another interesting issue. They need to figure out who they are appealing to with this character. I keep hearing people say she’s exceedingly popular with teenage girls ages 13-18. If that’s the case why slap an R rating on this movie?
So while there’s no way this movie can be written off yet (though I know a lot of people will) what’s Harley’s future?
Well we next see her in Suicide Squad 2 where she and Viola Davis are literally the only draws of that film for me. It will be interesting to see what James Gunn has in store for her. He certainly seems taken with Margot Robbie.
I also recently read an adorable Wonder Woman/Harley team up that would work so well!
It would be a barbed but ultimately friendly clash of two wildly different characters to play off one another. It also took place in London mainly so it would get Harley out of Gotham.
I think Gotham City Sirens is still in play. Though Warner Brothers may need to do exactly what they don’t want to do and lay some work for it in other films. The Batman would be a great place to lay some possible Cat Woman storyline that could pay off in Sirens but I doubt that’s going to happen.
I’m still holding out hope for a strong (and well-cast) Poison Ivy showing up somewhere! But that’s a post for another day.
Hopefully Birds of Prey will rally this weekend! I mean it would be very fitting for Harley’s character. You can never really count her out 🙂
I nearly went to watch this today. That was until I realised I hadn’t planned my day properly and had to postpone.
I hope you enjoy it when you see it! It’s really a lot of fun!
It’s so frustrating hearing how badly this movie is going. I just read that they’ve actually changed the name to Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey now so whilst it’s good that WB have finally noticed their error, they should have been marketing this better in the first place!
I for one loved the Birds of Prey title, the story is told by Harley but the other girls have important stories!
They should really push hard for this weekend! Play up the Galentine’s /Broken hearted idea. Honestly she was never so relatable than the beginning drunken chunk of this one 🙂
Honestly this is the last year I am waiting for any WB release. They betrayed this movie and I am sure WW1984 and Dune will also underperforn because of what a shittty, inept studio they are. They dont deserve those IPs, creators and our interest
Dune has Jason, Rebecca and Oscar though so I’ll probably be half it’s box office stateside!
I agree though I hope Gal and Patty see this and get out ahead of the marketing. I’ve seen people say they wanted Harley to be the female Deadpool but Reynolds was the marketing push for that movie in a way that, much as I like Margot, I just don’t think she can match. I still have my fingers crossed I saw it again yesterday and there was definitely more people, especially for a Tuesday!
I’m going to hold off on watching this until it’s on a streaming service lol. DC has burned me one too many times. The only film I’ve actually enjoyed is Wonder Woman. WW1984 is probably the only DC movie I will watch in theaters for a very long time haha.
Yes as much as I loved it unless you really want to it’s waitable which I think is true of so many movies these days!
This was interesting. It’s a bit contradictory if the target audience is much younger than the age rating of the film. I do think that it appeals to a niche audience. Whereas Wonder Woman can appeal to both male and female audiences because she possesses more traditionally male characteristics. It’s a tricky one to market. I’d like to know which demographic was interested as well.