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Why Is 'Birds of Prey' Suffering at the Box Office? (thewrap.com) 280

The Warner Brothers/DC film Birds of Prey "is proving not to be the February box office success industry observers had hoped," according to The Wrap: After grossing $13 million on Friday from 4,236 screens, the film is now estimated to earn an opening weekend of $34 million, which would be the lowest start for a DC Comics adaptation since the $5.3 million opening of the box office bomb Jonah Hex in 2010. Heading into the weekend, trackers had been projecting an opening weekend of $55 million while Warner Bros. was more conservative with a $45 million start... Reports on the budget for "Birds of Prey" have varied but have tended to be around $85-95 million.
"Oof. That's not what was wanted or expected," writes Cinema Blend. First of all, the title probably didn't help... Second, Birds of Prey is rated R. Suicide Squad, which gave Margot Robbie's Harley her big showcase, was rated PG-13. As Deadline noted, a lot of young Harley fans -- who loved the animated series and Suicide Squad -- may have been shut out by that rating...

People are also comparing Birds of Prey to Deadpool, which opened to $132,434,639 in February 2016. It may seem like apples to oranges, but they are both R-rated comic book movies opening in February.

Here's a humorous sidenote. At one point in the film, Harley Quinn asks herself what she could've done to offend Ewan McGregor's narcissistic character -- with one possible reason appearing for a split-second on the screen: "Voted for Bernie."

"We just snuck it in there," director Cathy Yan told the Washington Post.
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Why Is 'Birds of Prey' Suffering at the Box Office?

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  • by melted ( 227442 ) on Sunday February 09, 2020 @12:38AM (#59706554) Homepage

    Because of insufficient consumption of soy by the male audience. Go woke get broke.

    • Before we even talk about "get woke go broke" perhaps we should talk about how the product is simply mismarketed, since some viewers commented that the movie is not as woke as it's hailed to be. They're marketing a comic adaptation movie in way that traditional main target audience of comic movies find off-putting. Imagine if a Tiffany spend deca-millions to target its new perfume to "Macho Man" and explain why on fishing channels ads why manly man should use perfume and line flops, they can blame no one

  • Because It Is Bad (Score:5, Informative)

    by sexconker ( 1179573 ) on Sunday February 09, 2020 @12:42AM (#59706566)

    It's a bad movie.
    A bad portrayal of Harley Quinn.
    A bad portrayal of the other characters.
    And it's literally about Ewan McGregor being gay and going on a villainous spree because his gay dick pics leaked.

    If the movie were actually woke, he'd be the victim of revenge porn / non-consensual pornography.

    • by LostMyBeaver ( 1226054 ) on Sunday February 09, 2020 @01:42AM (#59706650)
      Let me summarize... having seen the film since we could not find anything else to watch... I just wouldnâ€(TM)t recommend it to anyone else. It was an origins film that dragged on for 90 minutes of a relatively boring back story before it went into another DC style fight scene where the so called heroes did not even get scratched. The entire story actually centered around a girl who could not poop fast enough. I repeat... the plot was... hold out until a teenaged girl poops.

      The only redeeming factor of the film was that Harley has a pet hyena that does not even have a real role.

      How is it that with 100 years worth of plot lines to work with, DC cannot find a single story line worth turning into a film?
      • The entire story actually centered around a girl who could not poop fast enough. I repeat... the plot was... hold out until a teenaged girl poops.

        I'm sorry, what?

      • NIH syndrome. They have to put their own stamp on it and Robbie could do that far easier with a bunch of lesser known characters than the major Batman characters which Harley actually teamed up with in the comics. Especially with Cat Woman there would have been limited design space because they'd have to coordinate it with The Batman.

        WB/DC doesn't really do coordination. On the one hand it's admirable that each producer can do its own thing, on the other trying to do that with a shared continuum is kinda si

    • by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

      And nothing really about that movie or any anticipation at all for it before it makes news because it flops.

      One of the movies that's just makes one ask - why does it exist?

  • It is hot garbage? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by SeyserKoze ( 6344532 )
    It is not a surprise the movie is doing badly. Something worse then the ghost busters reboot deserves what it gets. I think of it as a noble experiment in information warfare. There are clearly fake positive reviews on both meta critic and rotten garbage. The fact is rg has the review score pegged at something impossibly high was the first sign. Then articles like this come out that ask why is it bombing. What is sad is they could make an interesting Harley Quinn movie. Just look at the characters scenes
    • by TheReaperD ( 937405 ) on Sunday February 09, 2020 @12:53AM (#59706596)

      Everything that can be said about the DC movie franchise was the reaction to the Wonder Woman movie: "Holy shit, they made a good movie... HOW?!"

      • I'm pretty sure that most of the reason they churn out so many DC movies is that Marvel is pulling it off and they can't see why they can't too. I don't even watch the Marvel movies btw. But the DC people know they can't just "Marvel-ize" DC and get away with that without looking like also-rans so they're grasping around for a distinct formula, with little success. It's just their blind hope that they'll stumble on something that works.

        • by The Rizz ( 1319 ) on Sunday February 09, 2020 @05:53AM (#59706986)

          the DC people know they can't just "Marvel-ize" DC and get away with that without looking like also-rans

          Except they literally could. Marvel and DC are so similar in so many ways, right down to a large number of the characters being literal rip-offs of characters from the other company. This hasn't hampered either side from putting their own twist on things, or achieving their own success in print, so why should film be any different?

          The simple fact of the matter is that if DC got a competent project lead, competent writers and directors who actually have a feel for the characters, and god-forbid actually tried to use a tone for the movies that's right for the characters it wouldn't matter if it felt Marvel-y. Viewers want good movies, and could care less if it feels like it's taking inspiration from elsewhere as long as this movie is good.

          Get a writer and director who actually have a feel for a character and let them set the proper tone and you end up with Joker. Let someone who doesn't give a shit about the characters take over and you get Batman v Superman and the rest of the garbage they've been dropping the last several years.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        How? They got rid of Zack Schneider and brought some decent talent in.

        • by Cederic ( 9623 )

          I like Zack Schneider.

          He favours spectacle but he is quite good at it. There's a level of honesty to his work.

          300 was stylistic, Watchmen has one of the finest opening credits in cinema history and Sucker Punch has a complex multilayer story told through compelling imagery and a hell of a soundtrack.

    • there is a slim chance they will start making good movies again.

      I'll agree with that bit.

    • There are clearly fake positive reviews on both meta critic and rotten garbage.

      Ahhh yes the old "they don't agree with me so it must be fake" line.

      The fact is rg has the review score pegged at something impossibly high was the first sign.

      There's nothing "impossibly high" about it. On the critical review it's the lowest rating of movies opening this week. On audience review it's run of the mill.

      As long as these things fail there is a slim chance they will start making good movies again.

      There are plenty of good movies being made. Based on your opinions I'm happy they are being made instead of whatever the hell it is that you're after.

  • by cygnusvis ( 6168614 ) on Sunday February 09, 2020 @12:55AM (#59706598)
    I never even heard of the movie until this article, thats why its loosing dollars.
    • I never even heard of the movie until this article, thats why its loosing dollars.

      In this case they certainly loosed the dollars. But I don't think they're calling them back again.

    • They most likely gave it the advertisement budget they thought would optimize profit. So not hearing about it says something about their own assessment of its appeal.

    • by imidan ( 559239 )
      I had heard of it, but I didn't realize that it was a DC movie. They buried Harley Quinn's name in a subtitle that I haven't heard, so I had no idea that her character was part of it. If they'd put her name in front of the movie, I would have at least had some idea of what it was. That said, I never watched Suicide Squad, partly because the reviews were in the toilet, so my being aware of that connection probably wouldn't have helped that much, anyway.
  • by Kunedog ( 1033226 ) on Sunday February 09, 2020 @01:13AM (#59706610)
    In every clip and article I've seen of Ewan McGregor talking about the movie, he can't shut up about the political agenda woven throughout, the same agenda that we expect took priority over the film's quality, because we've seen it happen over and over again.

    https://boundingintocomics.com... [boundingintocomics.com]
    https://boundingintocomics.com... [boundingintocomics.com]

    Maybe lots of people simply heeded his warnings and stayed away.

    Here's a humorous sidenote. At one point in the film, Harley Quinn asks herself what she could've done to offend Ewan McGregor's narcissistic character -- with one possible reason appearing for a split-second on the screen: "Voted for Bernie."

    Haha yes, just a sidenote and not indicative of the core problem at all . . .

    • by Vrallis ( 33290 ) on Sunday February 09, 2020 @03:12AM (#59706756) Homepage

      Get woke, go broke. Funny thing is reviews from the "anti-woke" crowd actually agree the movie itself really did NOT end up being that woke. The problem is they advertised the fuck out of it being hyper-feminist / woke / whatever gender politics bullshit. They successfully chased off anyone who might have seen it.

  • I might have seen it until I saw the trailer. Complete turn off. In particular the HQ portrayal but the whole thing looked phoned in as a HQ quick cash grab by people who don't know or care about why HQ is so popular.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • The character has been transforming into an anti-hero in the comic books. She used to be a competent psychiatrist, and got fascinated with the Joker's fascinating worldview and ultimate "bad boy" charm. Who among us who tries to be lawful and nice to people hasn't felt the temptation to be someone else?

    • What's Bernie even doing in there? Did he drop out of the race for the White House and decide to run for mayor of Gotham?
  • misandry (Score:5, Insightful)

    by prof_robinson ( 2632705 ) on Sunday February 09, 2020 @01:40AM (#59706642)
    The Bernie flash is the least of it. The painful wokeness, the constant misandry, the intersectional leftwing propaganda... none of it sells, and it never does
    • Re:misandry (Score:5, Funny)

      by Brett Buck ( 811747 ) on Sunday February 09, 2020 @02:07AM (#59706680)

      So says the member of the white heteronormative patriachical power structure. We're going to keep making bad movies with unappealing actors and bad plots with "correct" woke messages, delivered with the subtlety of bricks through plate-glass windows, until you feel appropriately ashamed of being cisgendered. We'll show you, no matter how broke we go!

      • Stop! You win! I give up! I swear I now feel appropriately shamed! Can you PLEASE stop making shitty SJW movies out of otherwise great characters like HQ? Pretty please?
      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        We'll show you, no matter how broke we go!

        I don't like Disney. So to show my displeasure, I bought some stock. Sorry, A stock. One share.

        Every 6 months the send me stuff in the mail about how great things are. Every year they send me a giant $0.12 cent check. And every year I ignore all of it. I'm putting them out of business one mailer at a time -- those things are HEAVY and cost over a dollar to ship, never mind the great expense of a computer chugging along keeping track of my thousand of pennies they still owe me.

        How am I donig? Are

    • Did you see the movie Black Panther?

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      If it was that bad then surely the Rotten Tomatoes score would have been mobbed by now. But it's sitting at 83%: https://www.rottentomatoes.com... [rottentomatoes.com]

      Even the IMDB reviews, which are always hammered if there is even a hint of "wokeness" about it, are mostly focusing on the editing choices.

      • I gave it a decent rating just because the special effects and scenery were top notch. It's a very forgettable movie though with a fairly shitty plot. Certainly not one worth rewatching.

      • by Cederic ( 9623 )

        Oh please. Rotten Tomatoes never was a useful or reliable guide, and that was before they started deleting any user reviews that counter the narrative.

        Anybody that gives them the slightest level of credence these days is doing themselves a disservice.

  • OBVIOUS (Score:5, Insightful)

    by slashmydots ( 2189826 ) on Sunday February 09, 2020 @01:54AM (#59706662)
    Because of activist feminist bullshit instead of a story, writing, dialogue...quality of any sort!
  • Get woke... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Iamthecheese ( 1264298 ) on Sunday February 09, 2020 @02:10AM (#59706686)
    Here's a clue you half-witted Hollywood twats, most of America and even the world doesn't think like you. We watch movies for entertainment and interesting new ideas, not to see the same propaganda trotted out again and again and again. You want people to watch? Make relatable, flawed characters who face challenges over time and develop themselves to overcome the challenges. Make interesting plots that allow for the development. Write women who can be pathetic sometimes and men who can be heroic. Really do you think equipping every female with plot armor for the hundredth time is going to make an interesting story? Make foils for your protagonist which actually foil the protagonist for a time. Write thoughtful dialogue that lets the actors and actresses be at their best. Take two thirds of your gee whiz CG budget and put it into finding better scripts and writing them to be entertaining. And for just one movie will you PLEASE not push the politics of the current year? Fuck.
    • It's especially silly, given how you could take inspiration from how a woman would successfully win in reality.

      By
      0. Violent speech. (Like pushing those buttons that break the opponent's mind and make him blind and helpless.)
      1. Screaming for help.
      2. Playing the helpless victim.
      3. Manipulating a bunch of dumb white knights into doing the dirty work.
      4. Pulling all the strings.
      5. Intrigate somebody to death with years of planning.
      6. Poison him.
      7. Set a trap.
      8. Use the enemy's own strength against him.

      It's not l

  • by Ashthon ( 5513156 ) on Sunday February 09, 2020 @02:11AM (#59706688)

    Here's a clip from the film showing the quality of action you can expect. It looks like bad amateur wrestling. They're not coming anywhere close to making contact with the punches, and it looks absurd when these limp wristed attacks somehow send the men flying.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXZLgB6FXZU [youtube.com]

    Aside from that, telling the primarily male audience that they're scum probably doesn't help.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • I haven't seen the movie, but the clip makes it look like a throwback to the early half campy Batman movies with Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson and I think audiences have moved way past that. Might be fun to watch in three years on TNT or TBS to see how ridiculously they dub the not-safe-for-TV language.
      • Those campy Batman movies were actually fun, mostly because they didn't take themselves too seriously. And perhaps audiences haven't moved past that kind of movie yet; you wouldn't remake them exactly the same way, but just look at many Marvel movies which are the same harmless fun while being fully unbelievable.

        And I don't recall those Batman movies ever being this ridiculous... The comments under that YT clip agree.
    • Here's a clip from the film showing the quality of action you can expect. It looks like bad amateur wrestling. They're not coming anywhere close to making contact with the punches, and it looks absurd when these limp wristed attacks somehow send the men flying.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXZLgB6FXZU [youtube.com]

      Aside from that, telling the primarily male audience that they're scum probably doesn't help.

      Jesus, that looks like a bad TV show. Good lord.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      This seems to be the primary criticism of the movie. Michael Bay style action sequences, silly and with too much going on to really follow anything.

      This video about the master of on-film action, Jackie Chan, explains why most western fight sequences suck: https://youtu.be/Z1PCtIaM_GQ [youtu.be]

  • You paid money to see Suicide Squad. Afterwards you hear there's another movie in the same franchise. How strong a desire do you feel to see it? Sometimes people see a bad film before they know it's bad, and the impact is felt by the sequel. I thought Birds of Prey an unambitious success. It was enjoyable to watch but nothing special.
  • We're TIRED of it! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by BAReFO0t ( 6240524 )

    How about a movie that actually *matters*, for a change?
    Not just ... plastic.
    Plastic stories, plastic people, plastic mindsets, plastic reasons, plastic "emotions". Empty "products".

    Not something ultimately based on 30s-60s mindsets and trying to imitate Nazi Übersoldat propaganda and be a counter-agument to Soviet propaganda (and later, to itself).

    Not trying to milk the same old "i.p." to death... and then some.

  • by BAReFO0t ( 6240524 ) on Sunday February 09, 2020 @02:45AM (#59706732)

    Instead, the Content Mafia prefers other strategies:

    * Get a bigger whip.
    * Replace the rider.
    * Say "We've always ridden the horse like that!"
    * Launch a horse assessment committee.
    * Travel to other places, to learn how they ride dead horses.
    * Raise the quality standards for riding of dead horses.
    * Launch a task force to resuscitate the dead horse.
    * Insert a training unit, to improve riding skills.
    * Undertake a comparison of differently dead horses.
    * Change the critera that define if a horse is dead.
    * Hire outside consultants to ride the dead horse.
    * Combine several dead horses, so they'll become faster.
    * Declare: "No horse can be so dead, that you can't still whip it"
    * Leverage further resource to omprove the horse performance.
    * Make a study, to see if there are cheaper consultants.
    * Buy something, that makes dead horses run faster.
    * Declare, that our horse is "better, faster and cheaper" dead.
    * Create a quality circle, to find a usage for dead horses.
    * Rework the performance conditions for horses.
    * Create an independent cost center for dead horses.

    I'm kidding. Just blame sea-faring thugs and snort more cocaine.

  • Patriarchy.
  • Remember? That time when every idiot and his dog made a movie to "appeal" to black people, no matter how shitty, because it was considered "in" and they wanted to milk it.

    This is that, but "for" women.
    (I'd argue, at best, in an insulting way.)

  • Oh wait... it has burst.
    All {good/bad/awful} things must come to an end.

    I have to admit that I got bored with this franchise a long time ago. I'm almost at the stage of preferring to read a good book than watch another sequel/prequel/offshoot/whatever that Hollywood throws out. It is almost as if we are back in the days when they'd churn out 50+ Westerns a year. That bubble didn't last and neither will this one.

  • "Voted for Bernie."

    I wonder how "Voted for Trump" would have done. Made the female power base who doesn't go to these movies anyway not go to it even more?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Noishkel ( 3464121 )
      Well if she had said that then the reviews would have been universally bad. Hollywood, including even the review industry, is mostly one big far left hive-mind anymore.
  • by twocows ( 1216842 ) on Monday February 10, 2020 @12:08PM (#59711368)
    I had a big post typed out and then accidental refresh killed it. Lovely.

    The issue isn't politics. The issue is stupid political bullshit. There are countless examples of politics done well in fiction. Star Trek TNG alone has probably dozens of examples. Fallout: New Vegas is itself one giant example.

    I think the biggest thing that separates good political stories from bad is that the side the authors don't agree with is treated as a legitimate perspective. For example, Commander Bruce Maddox in "The Measure of a Man" isn't a cartoon villain bent on hacking up Data, he's a researcher who wants to help create a new race... while being blind to the servitude he would be dooming that race to. Even Data himself at the end says he looks forward to seeing the results of his further research. Likewise, in Fallout: New Vegas, the Legion are seemingly about as close to comically evil as you could get... but if you actually side with them, youf ind Caesar is pretty well-read and pragmatic, going into a lot of philosophy about why he thinks he's right and what he hopes to achieve by taking the NCR (namely, the transformation of the Legion into something that also contains the good parts of the NCR). The developers actually said they wanted to show even more perspective on the Legion (like the difference between their fighting force in the Mojave and the actual civilization they have in the east), but it was cut due to time constraints.

    A lot of the political stories that end up flops like this one aren't just political, they're just outright dumb. Nobody wants to be bashed in the face with a story about how the benevolent Bemocrats are being oppressed by the stupid, violent Pepublicans. That's the same dumb, one-sided drivel we get in Facebook comments and is about as informative. Political stories aren't inherently bad but if you only bother to flesh out your own side and just make the other side straight-up villains with nonsensical or comically evil motivations, your story is unlikely to resonate with anyone outside of the small number of people who are as obsessed over your brand of politics as you are.

"I've seen it. It's rubbish." -- Marvin the Paranoid Android

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