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Desperate Warner Bros. is Quickly Retitling Birds of Prey After Weak Box Office Opening

cokicokiwi27

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Although it earned decent reviews from critics, the new earned a disappointing $33 million in its first three days in theaters. Now, in an effort to bolster its box office performance, it looks like Warner Bros. is orchestrating a last-minute rebranding. ComicBook.com brings word that some theater chains are now calling the film Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey.

The report indicates that AMC and Regal, the country’s two biggest theater chains, have already adopted the film’s new name. That name change is reflected on their respective sites, even though it clearly doesn’t match what appears on the poster. However, ticketing websites like Fandango still present the title as Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn).

Margot Robbie’s portrayal of Harley was/is the movie’s biggest draw. Case in point: she’s essentially the face of its marketing campaign. Regardless, it’s difficult to imagine how this latest strategy could light a fire under potential new viewers. After all, Harley’s name is already in the longer version of the title. In all likelihood it probably won’t have much of an impact. Naturally, fans on Twitter are having a good time with it and even evoking the ghost of another WB movie that had a name change.

In the meantime, there are several theories as to why Birds of Prey failed to match the box office intake of prior DC moves. Some have suggested that the R-rating is to blame. However, this doesn’t hold much water when both Deadpool movies and Joker are top earners. Others have suggested that the supporting characters are too under-the-radar to fill theater seats. As Heroic Hollywood notes, Warners expected much more out of this colorful and fun R-rated comic book movie that has a reported budget of $80-$100M. Unfortunately, a low final tally could hurt its chances of spawning sequels or spinoffs.

Do you think Birds of Prey’s new title will help at the box office?



Birds of Prey Is Now Called Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey
 

T H I E F S

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Who wants to see white women kick ass?

Like Godfrey said, "they ain't tough"

There's two white women, one sista (okay, this is LSA: biracial), one Latina, and one Asian.

I think the title might have been a problem but I think a bigger problem is the fact they chose to make this R-rated when Harley is so popular with teens and tweens. The marketing in general was bad.
 

DolceDiva

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Saw it. It wasn’t the worst thing I’ve seen but it wasn’t good either. Changing the name isn’t going to help.
 

Thewonder

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Idk if that will help but the emancipation of one Harley was a stupid name all the trailers,promos and websites call it birds of Prey. Marketing was terrible damage is done they should cut their losses at this point
 

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That whole franchise is flopping and they should've cancelled all the films except Wonder Woman 1984.

Besides that, the public (including white men) are tired of stories about white women.
 

Thewonder

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There's two white women, one sista (okay, this is LSA: biracial), one Latina, and one Asian.

I think the title might have been a problem but I think a bigger problem is the fact they chose to make this R-rated when Harley is so popular with teens and tweens. The marketing in general was bad.

That's kinda the problem with Harley she doesn't really appeal to anybody outside her fanbase and this movie likely won't change anybody' s mind
 
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Potinsfille

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So maybe WB can take the hint and not do the sequel to the great epic reboot Tomb Raider....which basically made the exact same amount of money the Jolie original did almost 20 years before??? Flop, Flop, Flop
 

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Who wants to see white women kick ass?

Like Godfrey said, "they ain't tough"

It's true. Even white men know they benefit from white supremacy that was set in place by white men. But white women act like they made gains all by themselves.

They're emotionally fragile and neurotic. The movies and tv shows that actually play to that fact do well and the stories are usually more interesting to watch. Watching them play tough is boring and unrealistic most of the time.
 

GMitch2020

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There's two white women, one sista (okay, this is LSA: biracial), one Latina, and one Asian.

I think the title might have been a problem but I think a bigger problem is the fact they chose to make this R-rated when Harley is so popular with teens and tweens. The marketing in general was bad.
Tokenism, white feminism and a flaky fan-demographic is not a good mix. They needed to shelve this movie.

Harley Quinn was the best part of Suicide Squad but they literally had nothing else to work with:

Leto's Joker sucked

Affleck and Cavill are gone

And there's no other villains or heroes that anyone cares about. How did they think this was going to go?
 

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That's kinda the problem with Harley she doesn't really appeal to anybody outside her fanbase and this movie likely won't change anybody' s name

Not true. Harley Quinn is actually wildly popular and Robbie's portrayal of her has been universally praised. I think the marketing was just really bad, plus the incel crowd was deadset on boycotting the movie because they said it's "feminist propaganda."
 

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That whole franchise is flopping and they should've cancelled all the films except Wonder Woman 1984.

Besides that, the public (including white men) are tired of stories about white women.

Aquaman and Joker both made over a billion dollars (Joker did it without being released in China) and Shazam! was critically lauded too... but the whole franchise is flopping, right.

Just claim your anti-DC bias and stop pretending you are commenting based on any facts.
 

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I mean does Harley quinn really need her own movie? Shes better as a side character not the main one. Plus the trailers looked awful.
 

unfilteredtruth

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Chile I didn’t even kno this was a Harley Quinn movie until I saw Normani & Meg’s collab video. Even THEN I had to squint real hard to put two and two together. They really missed the mark with branding and marketing for this project.
 

Thewonder

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Not true. Harley Quinn is actually wildly popular and Robbie's portrayal of her has been universally praised. I think the marketing was just really bad, plus the incel crowd was deadset on boycotting the movie because they said it's "feminist propaganda."

Marketing was bad but there are still people that don't like Harley outside her fanbase tbh there isn't much to the character. This movie is proof there is only so much to do with her
 

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I don’t know how that name made it out of development. Who thought it was a good idea for the star of the movie’s name to come at the end long sentence of fluff?


I mean does Harley quinn really need her own movie? Shes better as a side character not the main one. Plus the trailers looked awful.

Right. Harley is good as a supporting character in small doses. Just bc ppl liked her in an ensemble cast mean she needed her own film.
 

Nova_23

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Not true. Harley Quinn is actually wildly popular and Robbie's portrayal of her has been universally praised. I think the marketing was just really bad, plus the incel crowd was deadset on boycotting the movie because they said it's "feminist propaganda."
I think this movie’s performance all but proves that Harley Quinn is popular amongst comic book fans but that general audiences don’t care for her character nor do they care for Margot Robbie’s portrayal of her (or Margot Robbie in general)
 

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I really enjoyed the movie and Margot played Harley incredibly well. I'm sad it's not doing well. I wanted it to do better.

The WonderWoman II trailer looked great though. Looking forward to that...
 

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After the success of Deadpool, WB thought they could turn Harley Quinn into their version of Deadpool. Even the movie itself replicates the first Deadpool with the narration, flashbacks and Harley talking to the audience.

They’re probably fuming that Deadpool made more on its opening weekend than this movie is going to make total. But this is what they get for butchering the Birds of Prey in order to make Margot’s vanity project.
 

Thewonder

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She didn’t want to be upstaged cus Catwoman and Poison Ivy would have outsold

As I said before I can't see her coexisting with Zoe or whoever plays Ivy. Catwoman and Ivy are big name characters,nobody is gonna want them tossed to the side like Canary and Huntress were in the birds movie


PS. Your Avatar matches your response perfectly lol. BTW I loved Space Ghost
 

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I was going to see it Friday but meh. I’ll make time for it eventually because I’m rooting for DC, but this didn’t need to be r-rated from what I can tell. Take out the f-bombs and xes and it wouldn’t make much difference.

Also, as much as they try to make Harley happen without Joker, she’s not that interesting. We know their relationship is fµcked, let villains be villains.
 

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I think this movie’s performance all but proves that Harley Quinn is popular amongst comic book fans but that general audiences don’t care for her character nor do they care for Margot Robbie’s portrayal of her (or Margot Robbie in general)

Most of the audience who went to see it and raved about the movie aren't comic book fans, though. And most of the people who deliberately stayed away from the movie ARE (male) comic book fans who boycotted it because "fEmInIsS aJeNdUh"
 

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I just hate that she couldn't master Harley's signature accent/voice.

I don't think she couldn't handle it... Fans started rooting for her to be cast as Harley in the first place was because she used a similar accent in Wold of Wall Street. For some reason they decided not to use it in the movie, though... dunno, maybe they thought it would be too distracting? Kinda like how ScarJo's Black Widow doesn't have her trademark accent either? It's kinda weird how in the current run of superhero movies they always try to make the characters as... flat and featureless as possible.
 

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After the success of Deadpool, WB thought they could turn Harley Quinn into their version of Deadpool. Even the movie itself replicates the first Deadpool with the narration, flashbacks and Harley talking to the audience.


Harley already had those features in her comics before the Deadpool movie came out. The movie basically adapts the narrative style of the comic.

That being said, the success of Deadpool probably did inspire WB to make the Harley movie.
 

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They made the same mistake they made with Justice League in rushing too fast into some teamup people weren't asking for.
 

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Marketing was bad but there are still people that don't like Harley outside her fanbase tbh there isn't much to the character. This movie is proof there is only so much to do with her

I need you to go to Instagram or Tumblr, search #HarleyQuinn, see what comes up and tell me that the only people who dig her is a small fanbase.

Also, she currently has a cartoon on DC Universe that is garnering a lot of praise and is actually pretty hilarious.





 
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DivaLasVegas82

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This movie wasn't bad-it was fun. Rebranding/renaming isn't going to help it though.

I agree. I thought the movie was pretty good. But calling it something different isn’t going to help the movie’s performance. Everyone who saw the trailer knew that it was about Harley Quinn. I just think irks historically been difficult to get boys and men to see female dominated movies with a few exceptions.
 

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I need you to go to Instagram or Tumblr, search #HarleyQuinn, see what comes up and tell me that the only people who dig her is a small fanbase.

Also, she currently has a cartoon on DC Universe that is garnering a lot of praise and is actually pretty hilarious.







Thats her fanbase like i ve been saying and clearly everybody obsessed with her didn't show up for Birds and they will likely only contribute to DVD and Streaming Sells

Most people outside her fandom don't care to watch Joker's Ex Cheerleader talking about how shes free yet won't shut up about him. if you want to get people to care for Harley you need something like this R Rating,A big name Director,producer or writer or an A list Lead or A List Supporting cast.
HARLEEN_Cv1_FPO_5d02e789dc4119.75064979.jpg
 
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