The Birds of Prey opening weekend numbers are in, and they're well below what anyone had been projecting.
Early tracking for the Birds of Prey had the film coming in somewhere in the high $40 million to low $50 million range. Reportedly, the internal tracking at Warner Bros. was a bit more conservative and was pegging the number at around $45 million.
The final domestic numbers for the Birds of Prey opening weekend came in with $33.2 million, marking the lowest opening for a DC film adaptation since Jonah Hex in 2010. In the foreign markets, the film took in $48 million from 78 markets with Mexico having the largest haul at $4.6 million. This brings the global total to $81.2 million.
With an estimated budget of $84.5 million, going by your standard film math, Birds of Prey will need to go on to a $169 million dollar haul globally to break even. It's all going to come down to word of mouth marketing at this point, and how well the film can weather wide releases next weekend like Sonic the Hedgehog and Fantasy Island.
Birds of Prey Opening Weekend - What went wrong?
It's easy to sit back and try to pick apart what exactly when wrong, but from the outside looking in, you're never going to nail it.
Was it marketing? Possibly. The trailers felt like they came out extremely late, and the poster artwork was confusing. As an average movie-goer there was nothing tell you anything about the film in its posters.
While an R-rating worked for Joker, it may not have been the best move for Birds of Prey. The highest audience scores are coming from young women, but with no one under the age of 17 able to see the film without an adult in the U.S., that cuts out a major ticket buying force.
Was it any one thing that led to the blow Birds of Prey opening weekend numbers? More than likely it was a combination of multiple factors.
The reviews are good, and we liked it, so if you haven't seen it yet, it's still worth checking out we feel.
