Birds of Prey Changes Title After Box Office Struggles: https://comicbook.com/dc/2020/02/10/...-harley-quinn/
Birds of Prey Changes Title After Box Office Struggles: https://comicbook.com/dc/2020/02/10/...-harley-quinn/
Let's not act like Shazam or the BOP are the same level of name recognition as Wonder Woman or Aquaman, regardless of what people think of them. It's not surprising that a property with a bigger named character, as long as the film is good, would get more attention than more relatively obscure characters. They were also films designed with a broader appeal to wider audiences. Shazam and BOP seem to be on opposite ends: Shazam may seem to kiddie to appeal to older teens and young adults, and BOP is rated R which eliminates most families bringing kids to it.
That doesn't mean either of these are bad films (Shazam at least definitely isn't) or complete failures. Pointing this out is NOT being all doom and gloom here. And Shazam in particular was still a moderate success and we're getting a sequel and hopefully Dwayne Johnson can bring in a wider audience.
If that's the case, she failed miserably. Harley was front and center, with only Renee and Dinah getting any appreciable screen time for development. Not-Cassandra was a McGuffin and Huntress was a glorified cameo.
I think most are faithful to the spirit of the story, if not the letter. Cap fought Red Skull in World War II, Bucky was lost and believed to be killed, and he gets frozen in ice before being thawed out in the present. Tony Stark makes weapons, gets captured in a warzone and forced to build weapons, creates a mechanical suit to escape. Steve Trevor crashes on Themyscira, and Diana takes him back to Man's World. Kal El is sent to Earth to escape Krypton's destruction, grows to be Superman, etc, etc, etc.
You were close! Studio literally just renamed the movie Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey.
With DC, it seems that most of the time it's that they can't hold on to directors. Flash has had several, Batman had a couple, even Wonder Woman changed directors. I don't know if it's that they can't quite crack the story, or if it's that the studio is demanding something and the directors would rather walk.
DC is killing it on the small screen. But on the big screen, they are still struggling. On the flip side, Marvel has had some success on the small screen, but then those shows became victims of both Disney's larger corporate plans and the reshuffling of the people in charge. Now we'll have to see how successful their new crop of shows are on Disney+ (and I think they will be successful).
Those costumes are awesome. I wish we had gotten those in the movie.
I'm not a fan of title changes after something has already been released. Sure, at least they're acknowledging they messed up some of the marketing, but it feels a little desperate. The situation kind of reminds me of when the WB changed "Edge of Tomorrow" to "Live Die Repeat: Edge of Tomorrow" for home video, because I guess people confused the tagline for the title.
A bit too late, but I guess it is worth a shot. Changing the title and putting Harley Quinn at the start on ticket sites might make people aware it is a Harley Quinn movie instead of burying her name at the end of some stupidly long title and wondering what Birds of Prey is.
It should have just been a Harley Quinn solo movie from the start. Harley Quinn is a bigger brand than Birds of Prey and I'll never understand the decision to stick Harley in a BoP movie in the first place. This movie should be taught in marketing classes as a way not to title and market an IP.
They even drastically changed her costume from the Suicide Squad movie. You can like or dislike her SS costume, but it was proven to be a very popular design. I've seen that costume everywhere for years now. So they have this new movie mainly about Harley Quinn, but title it Birds of Prey and not Harley Quinn. Then Harley is in a dramatically different costume on all the marketing compared to this design that people have come to associate with the character. So when the average person (who doesn't have much or any comic book knowledge) sees any marketing for this Birds of Prey movie they don't really have any reference to what it is about. Since none of the other characters stand out or are commonly known either. The decision making here just blows my mind.
Wonder Woman and Aquaman's name recognition wasn't that big until recently is my point. Their films could just as easily have tanked. They do not have the history that Batman and to a lesser extent Superman have as major icons and money makers for WB.
No being doom and gloom is declaring a film that has just come out to be a box office failure as is clearly happening in this thread and constantly bringing up the reception of past movies that have little or no bearing on current ones even after we have successes like Aquaman. People are not simply "pointing things out" when it comes to the DCEU. Not a day goes by that there aren't comments (some with more than a hint of smugness) about how they are doomed or should reboot or will never catch up to Marvel or whatever else. Your attitude might be a bit more positive or neutral but that is far from the case for a number of comments here. Just a few pages back we had someone say the Supergirl movie was going to flop if we don't get a good Superman movie. We had another saying they hope the Birds of Prey movie tanks just because they hate Harley. This type of attitude plagues every DCEU movie pre and post-release.
Last edited by Agent Z; 02-10-2020 at 11:36 PM.
I can't help but gloat a little at the spectacular failure of Birds of Prey. Justice has been served! That's what you get for removing Oracle, butchering Cassandra Cain and turning the others into Harley Quinn's backup dancers. Maybe this will put an end to DC's hard on for Quinn? Oh, who am I kidding? They'll put her in WW3 next.
That's kinda pathetic.