Birds of Prey Reactions

[Gaastra]

https://deadline.com/2020/02/birds-o...ie-1202853768/

3RD UPDATE, Saturday AM: w/chart: In the wake of hitting highs with Wonder Woman, Aquaman and the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all-time in the 11-time Oscar-nominated and billion-dollar-plus grossing Joker, Warner Bros’ DC is hitting a pothole in the road with the Suicide Squad spinoff Birds of Prey, which made $13 million yesterday (including previews) on its way to a $33.8 million opening stateside.
Unfortunately, the solid reviews of 82% certified fresh, and 4-star PostTrak, and B+ CinemaScore audience exits (same as Suicide Squad and Joker), aren’t doing any favors here with the pic’s ticket sales. Rivals believe the exits are alright, just not the kind that take you over the top at the box office.

[Osiris-Rex]

That $50 million weekend was the overseas number. It originally was trended to open overseas at around twice that plus $50 million domestic.

So, we're going from an estimated $150 million global opening just days ago to an estimated $80-85 million at best.

I don't think we'll be seeing any Birds of Prey OR Harley Quinn sequels from this.

I kind of have a feeling that they will go through with at least a Gotham City Sirens movie as the sequel, just because it is Margot Robbie doing it.

This film has a lot of characters I’m fairly interested in among the BoP, and my second favorite Batcharacter/best Batgirl... but everything I’ve seen and heard about the film says the BoP characters are mostly just supporting characters for a Harley Quinn story, and Cassandra Cain just has her name, ethnicity, and nothing else.

And that’s not a formula that’s particularly interesting to me. I’d probably go see just a BoP film, or just a Harley Quinn film no problem, but combined? The two mini franchises feel to me like they’ll offset my interests in them a bit.

And if Cassandra Cain isn’t done well, that actively discourages me from catching the film. I’ve long held the opinion that all that she’d need to take off and have people see her real potential is to just get exposure with enough of her characteristics intact. And it sounds like none of them are in this movie.

I feel like, if they wanted a Harley Quinn and a team of Gotham Girls film, why wouldn’t you make a Gotham Sirens film? Poison Ivy and Catwoman both have anti-heroic histories older than Harley’s, are also rule breaking rebels, and have a better established rapport with Harley. Heck, Black Mask is even Catwoman’s traditional archnemesis! And if they wanted a Birds of Prey film, juts make a Birds of Prey film.

Margot Robbie's thinking was she wanted to introduce some characters less well known to the general public in her first movie. That's why she passed on Gotham City Sirens as the first one because everyone knows Catwoman
and Poison Ivy has also been in a movie. It's not like anyone else was interested in making a stand alone Birds of Prey movie, so this is probably their best shot at ever being in a movie. Maybe it they made a Green Arrow movie
we might see Black Canary. But everyone knows Batgirl as Barbara Gordon so I highly doubt Cassandra Cain would ever be in anything else.

So, "bruce".. um. Was this actually a german shepherd with CGI or was it a real hyena?

The hyena was CGI. Probably why we didn't get Lou and Bud, having two CGI hyenas would have been more expensive.

[ComicJunkie21]

I kind of have a feeling that they will go through with at least a Gotham City Sirens movie as the sequel, just because it is Margot Robbie doing it.



Margot Robbie's thinking was she wanted to introduce some characters less well known to the general public in her first movie. That's why she passed on Gotham City Sirens as the first one because everyone knows Catwoman
and Poison Ivy has also been in a movie. It's not like anyone else was interested in making a stand alone Birds of Prey movie, so this is probably their best shot at ever being in a movie. Maybe it they made a Green Arrow movie
we might see Black Canary. But everyone knows Batgirl as Barbara Gordon so I highly doubt Cassandra Cain would ever be in anything else.



The hyena was CGI. Probably why we didn't get Lou and Bud, having two CGI hyenas would have been more expensive.

The hyena was two German shepherds CGI. Apparently they tried to use a real hyena but he was too dangerous and tore up anything people gave him.

[kjn]

And that’s not a formula that’s particularly interesting to me. I’d probably go see just a BoP film, or just a Harley Quinn film no problem, but combined? The two mini franchises feel to me like they’ll offset my interests in them a bit.

I'd say to give it a chance. Black Canary is arguably the second most important character in the film, and she's depicted really well by Jurnee Smollett-Bell.

I'd also say that the early marketing for this movie was a clusterfuck that the actual movie has had to continually content with.

I feel like, if they wanted a Harley Quinn and a team of Gotham Girls film, why wouldn’t you make a Gotham Sirens film? Poison Ivy and Catwoman both have anti-heroic histories older than Harley’s, are also rule breaking rebels, and have a better established rapport with Harley. Heck, Black Mask is even Catwoman’s traditional archnemesis! And if they wanted a Birds of Prey film, juts make a Birds of Prey film.

As I understand it, they were working on at least two different scripts for a Harley Quinn movie: one with the Gotham City Sirens, and one with the Birds of Prey. In the end, they judged the Birds of Prey script to be the stronger one.

[Osiris-Rex]

I'd also say that the early marketing for this movie was a clusterfuck that the actual movie has had to continually content with.

As I understand it, they were working on at least two different scripts for a Harley Quinn movie: one with the Gotham City Sirens, and one with the Birds of Prey. In the end, they judged the Birds of Prey script to be the stronger one.

The first trailers was especially bad. I did like the 2nd trailer.

At one time David Ayer was pegged as director for Gotham City Sirens but he and Warner Bros. seem to have parted ways and Ayer still seems to be bitter about how that Warner Bros. screwed up Suicide Squad.
Gotham City Sirens was the movie that he felt would redeem himself. But when the Harley Quinn solo movie became Margot Robbie's project she opted for doing Birds of Prey instead.

[Vakanai]

I just hope this movie does well enough to warrant the planned GCS and BOP vs GCS films that are planned.

As for me, I plan to support this movie by going to see it next weekend. It'll be a good day, I'll also get those half off chocolates that didn't sell for Valentine's.

[ComicJunkie21]

Also, good for Margot as I think this is her company's first major film that's been produced and it's going to at least do $300 million without China.

[ComicJunkie21]

I just hope this movie does well enough to warrant the planned GCS and BOP vs GCS films that are planned.

As for me, I plan to support this movie by going to see it next weekend. It'll be a good day, I'll also get those half off chocolates that didn't sell for Valentine's.

I looked at past February releases like Deadpool and I think the bigger issue people aren't seeing is it that BoP was released the week before valentines day. Deadpool and other big February releases come out the week of valentines day. Personally if I had date plans for valentines weekend i would just wait too.

[Vakanai]

I looked at past February releases like Deadpool and I think the bigger issue people aren't seeing is it that BoP was released the week before valentines day. Deadpool and other big February releases come out the week of valentines day. Personally if I had date plans for valentines weekend i would just wait too.

Hopefully that means it will pick up next weekend. Definitely hoping it does well. If they actually pull off the follow up films as well it'll be like having a mini shared universe in the larger one, which is kind of neat.

[godisawesome]

I kind of have a feeling that they will go through with at least a Gotham City Sirens movie as the sequel, just because it is Margot Robbie doing it.



Margot Robbie's thinking was she wanted to introduce some characters less well known to the general public in her first movie. That's why she passed on Gotham City Sirens as the first one because everyone knows Catwoman
and Poison Ivy has also been in a movie. It's not like anyone else was interested in making a stand alone Birds of Prey movie, so this is probably their best shot at ever being in a movie. Maybe it they made a Green Arrow movie
we might see Black Canary. But everyone knows Batgirl as Barbara Gordon so I highly doubt Cassandra Cain would ever be in anything else.



The hyena was CGI. Probably why we didn't get Lou and Bud, having two CGI hyenas would have been more expensive.

Understand: I had no set desire to see Cass as Batgirl in this film.

But there’s something wrong if you’ve got a movie with a John Wick stunt coordinator, and Cassandra Cain, yet those two facts have nothing to do with each other.

I might see the movie in part so I can tie it into my Shadow of the Batgirl review on YouTube, as a kind of “Here’s at least one area where the film could undoubtedly have done better.”

[Matt]

I saw BoP and rather enjoyed it. Certainly superior to other efforts such as Man of Steel, Justice League or BvS. Not quite Wonder Woman level but still entertaining.
Action scenes were well done and there wasn't one cast member that stood out in a negative way.
I really did appreciate how a lot of the normal action tropes were pointed out, ignored and/or laughed at. That made for a great change of pace.

[trooper_thorn]

The budget is about $97.1M which for all intents and purposes means it'll probably have to make just under $200M to break even, so we're looking at a need to earn between $350M and $400M worldwide (depending on the domestic/overseas box office breakdown).

Yeah, unless this either has some serious legs or does gangbusters overseas they're going to be losing money on it.

If I had to guess why it's doing poorly I think I'd focus on three factors:

1. R rating (for those who've seen the film, was the level of violence necessary?)
2. Lax marketing. I'll be honest, I've only seen a handful of commercials for it and very little in the way of posters or billboards.
3. Overestimating the popularity of the character.

[skyvolt2000]

I decided to look up showings for the week for my city....

Today- there were zero showings for the morning and afternoon. Night showing only.
Cinepolis is showing Birds of Prey ONLY. 1917 & Bad Boys will not show unit after 10 PM BOTH with ONE showing. The only thing going on is a Dallas Stars game next door.
Cinepolis is showing Birds of Prey 15 times times a day between now and Thursday. No other movie has more than 4 a day.

Sunday-All day showings with a few Spanish language ones.

This is going to be the same all week. UNTIL Friday.

Only 2 places will be showing it. The Dallas one will be downtown. The other is in Mesquite. This is a red flag for me. A DC movie doing this doesn't seem right.

[skyvolt2000]

The budget is about $97.1M which for all intents and purposes means it'll probably have to make just under $200M to break even, so we're looking at a need to earn between $350M and $400M worldwide (depending on the domestic/overseas box office breakdown).

Yeah, unless this either has some serious legs or does gangbusters overseas they're going to be losing money on it.

If I had to guess why it's doing poorly I think I'd focus on three factors:

1. R rating (for those who've seen the film, was the level of violence necessary?)
2. Lax marketing. I'll be honest, I've only seen a handful of commercials for it and very little in the way of posters or billboards.
3. Overestimating the popularity of the character.

I have seen NONE and I am in a HUGE market. Then again this was the same for Joker, Shazam, Spiderverse, Aquaman & Wonder Woman.

I can see that R rating being an issue too. Kids in my city have Friday off-what adult is going to be there to take them?

[Jim Kelly]

Well, I'm in Vancouver and there are loads of showings. However, Vancouver audiences are seriously inexpressive--they don't react to any movie. This has become my holy grail--to find a movie audience that actually expresses their appreciation for a movie (I don't mean talking during the movie; I mean laughs, audible gasps, cheers, applause). I was laughing at several points in the movie, but I could have been at home and it would have been about the same experience. The sound was ear-piercing in the beginning, but I think that was the fault of the theatre not the film.