Birds Of Prey Early Box Office Projections Are Out

The first projections for Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) in its first weekend at the box office have arrive and it is expected to take in between $49 million and $55 million stateside. The film is slated to open on February 7 with an R-rating, marketing itself heavily as a Harley Quinn centered film with a girl gang vibe, bringing several DC Comics characters into the mix on the big screen for the first tie. Margot Robbie debuted as Harley Quinn in 2016's Suicide Squad and seems to be the centerpiece of the upcoming Birds of Prey story.

For comparison to other R-rated comic book films, Deadpool opened to $132.4 million in its February of 2016 debut. Its Deadpool 2 sequel hauled in $125 million in its first few days. The first Deadpool took the record for the largest R-rated opening, at the time. In 2017, Logan took in $97 million. Last year, Joker opened to $96 million. For perspective, Harley Quinn's previous outing in Suicide Squad opened to just more than $133 million in August of 2016.

The R-rating of the film might not be impacting its tracking numbers too strongly as Birds of Prey is hot with young moviegoers. The under 25 crowd, with males leading the anticipation charts ahead of young females, is hotly looking forward to the film. Young females, in fact, are citing the film among titles they are anticipating without being prompted with it.

"I did feel like I had to censor myself a lot, obviously, to suit a PG rating," Robbie told ComicBook.com on the Birds of Prey set in 2019, comparing her experience to that of the PG-13 Suicide Squad. "And a lot of the characters that exist in the DC world, to be honest, are quite dark. And a lot of them, Huntress for example, have serious childhood trauma, have serious mental illnesses, like Harley, whatever, but I felt like we never... Sometimes you can't really go as deep with those things if you have to censor yourself. And I thought, wouldn't it be liberating if we didn't have to worry about that and really go for it, and then later, in the edit, kind of find where the tone of movie lies."

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Birds of Prey hits theaters on February 7.