Weekend box office – Birds of Prey flying way lower than expected

Going into this weekend, it was expected that Warner Bros’ latest DCEU movie, Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), would finally dethrone Bad Boys for Life after the latter ruled the US box office for three weeks. That is exactly what happened, but it definitely didn’t go according to plan.

Both WB themselves and industry analysts were predicting that the Margot Robbie-led comic book team-up movie would debut in the US northwards of $45 million. Some even went as far as $55 million. However, after a reasonably solid start on Friday, Birds of Prey’s numbers suddenly plummeted steeply. When the dust settled, the film was still top of the US charts for this weekend past, but with only a much softer $33.2 million. That’s the smallest domestic opening yet for any DCEU release. This despite the fact that both critics and audience members are loving the film (Critics and Audience Score on RottenTomatoes at 81% and 83% respectively).

Internationally, things didn’t get that much better as Birds of Prey earned an additional $48 million from 78 markets. That gives it a global total of $81.3 million which doesn’t even break even with the film’s $85 million production price tag. Factor in advertising costs and WB will have to hope that great buzz coming from those people who actually watched the film this weekend past will give it some legs in the coming weeks. Luckily there isn’t much in the way of major competition (unless Sonic the Hedgehog surprises) for the rest of the month.

So what went wrong? Personally, I think that following the combo of underwhelming trailers and lacklustre promotions (they barely even featured the actual Birds of Prey!), the very positive hype from press who had seen it came too late. Embargos lifted just three days before release and WB needed to get the word out way earlier. It also didn’t help that the film was R-rated, meaning that a huge chunk of the fanbase for Robbie’s Harley Quinn couldn’t actually go see this movie as they’re too young. Either way, one of the DCEU’s best-reviewed entries, is now also one of its lowest-performing.

As for the rest of the chart, Bad Boys for Life dropped to second place with $12 million, dropping just 32%. More than likely inspired by its Oscar Best Picture nominations, 1917 had an incredible holdover as it dropped just 5% to add another $9 million as it rounded out the top three. It also has to be noted that Rian Johnson’s Knives Out, another Oscar nominee, had finally dropped out of the top ten last weekend after weeks of only minor drops… and it bounced right back again this weekend past as it only lost 9% to earn an extra $2.3 million. That leaves it on the cusp of $300 million globally.

Let’s see what the rest of the US box office chart looks like:

NE = New Entry

Last Updated: February 10, 2020