Birds Of Prey Disappoints At Box Office Despite Strong Reviews

Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) is now in theaters, and the word of mouth has been strong in both early reviews and initial mass audience reactions. Unfortunately for some reason that is not correlating to big box office numbers, as after strong $13 million on Friday the film's box office estimates have sunk to a weekend debut of $34 million. That is behind both the tracking estimates of $55 million and the more conservative studio estimate of $45 million and if that is the case that would be the lowest start for a DC film since Jonah Hex, which isn't great company (via The Wrap).

The budget for Birds of Prey has been estimated to be around $85 to $95 million, so a $34 million opening isn't a great start to make that money back. Now, that's just domestically of course, but unfortunately, it isn't doing much overseas either.

At the moment the film is available in 78 international markets, and so far has made around $18.1 million over the first three days of release (via Deadline). At the moment it is pegged to be somewhere in the low to mid $50 million range, which is below predictions of $60 to $70 million

For comparison's sake, Shazam, another very well-reviewed DC offering, only opened up to $53 million domestically and went on to bring in over $365 million, though that was also low for a DC film other than Justice League. Birds could follow that same pattern and end up around that total when all is said and done, but that would be a bigger disappointment considering Shazam didn't have the name recognition that Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn had.

It remains to be seen if business can pick up based on more positive word of mouth, but at the moment it's a bit puzzling why this isn't generating more ticket sales, especially with Harley Quinn front and center.

You can find the official description for Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) below.

"After splitting up with The Joker, Harley Quinn and three other female superheroes - Black Canary, Huntress and Renee Montoya - come together to save the life of a little girl (Cassandra Cain) from an evil crime lord."

Birds of Prey (And The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) is directed by Cathy Yan and stars Margot Robbie, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Ewan McGregor, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Rosie Perez, Chris Messina, Bojana Novakovic, Jenelle McKee, Ali Wong, and Matthew Willig.

Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) is in theaters now.