I find the box office immensely fascinating. There are so many factors at play that us “experts” are pretty much making educated guesses as to what’s successful or not, and as to why. It’s rare when a studio offers some insight into their release, and none of us are privy to their exit reports. It’s all a guessing game.
This brings me to Warner Bros. Pictures’ Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), their Suicide Squad spinoff that features Margot Robbie‘s Harley Quinn front and center in her very own movie.
Having skipped yesterday morning’s box office report, in short, the film underperformed. It opened at $33M with a global take of $84.5M. Not great. Also not a flop. Still, Warners expected much more out of this colorful and fun R-rated comic book movie that has a reported budget of $80-$100M. The film should break even, maybe even profit, but it should have been much, much more. What happened?
I spent the entire weekend searching for answers. Was it the R-rating? I mean, Deadpool did fine, so why not Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)? Maybe it was the timing? Black Panther broke box office records releasing in February. Was it the marketing? Maybe? I personally didn’t enjoy the trailers, but ended up having a great time with the film. How about the film’s unintelligible title? Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn). Awful. It’s such a mouthful that I couldn’t even remember it when I started writing this article.
Flashback to 2015, Warner Bros. was caught off guard when they started marketing Suicide Squad. They had no idea how popular Harley Quinn is. In fact, insiders tell me that they started to rework the film and shoot additional photography to inject her into more scenes.
So why in the world would you give the character her own movie and call it anything but Harley Quinn?
Warner Bros. is giving us a rare peek behind the curtain and offering up solid evidence that they believe, internally, that they made a mistake and that the title is one of the reasons for the film’s soft box office opening. It’s been confirmed that theater listings have officially changed the title from Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) to a much simpler, clean, and focused Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey. Just seeing it makes me feel less anxious. Funny enough, it also tells us the exact same information that the original did. It’s Harley Quinn’s movie with the Birds of Prey. Cool!
Even though Warner Bros. attempted this stunt once before with the Edge of Tomorrow VOD release, this move feels unprecedented. I’m not quite sure I’ve ever heard of a studio renaming their blockbuster release less than a week into release. I hope this move works because I don’t want to see Margot Robbie’s reign as Harley Quinn end like this. She deserves better.
Update: According to Atom Tickets’ Alisha Grauso, this isn’t an “official” title change. Here’s what she offered on Twitter:
Update on the #BirdsofPrey title change: It's apparently for display/search purposes only for vendors and theaters, not an official title change. Just to clarify for those of you writing about it. 🤷🏻♀️
— @alishagrauso.bsky.social (@AlishaGrauso) February 11, 2020
AMC, Cinemark, and Regal have all updated their sites to reflect the new title:
Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey.https://t.co/p1TlklXpY8 pic.twitter.com/9AC2O3cZgj
— Comicbook.com (@ComicBook) February 10, 2020