Birds of Prey BoP Box Office Thread

[writer0327]

Box offices like BOP have to drive studio heads crazy, because you can see if things were handled differently, there was certainly more than enough interest to generate a much larger box office, but at the same time its hard to put a finger on what caused it to be underwhelming in the first place.

 

[misslane38]

If I were to hazard a guess it's that audiences are somewhat risk averse, so they will be reluctant to give a chance to something that they can't easily categorize as "a thing I know I will like," and audiences tend to like to see things so they won't feel left out of the conversation. BOP may have been too niche, and would have always had to rely on good reviews and word of mouth. Perhaps WB should have built that up more by releasing reviews sooner and having more early screenings.

 

[DlAMONDZ]

They did the early review/screening thing with Shazam and it still had trouble building buzz

What Shazam and BOP needed was support. If this was a stable franchise they could've had Joker or Batman pop in to hook people in like they did for Suicide Squad but everything is all over the place it's easy to see this as an easy skip if you're not a fan

 

[kguillou]

The marketing sucked people. Thats it. People didnt even know this movie was coming out. This needed a Suicide Squad level push. SS had a whole Rick Ross rap video with Jared Leto in it. The soundtrack was everywhere, the Bohemian Rhapsody trailer was incredible, social media was BUZZING about SS. That movie, had it been good, probably wouldve soared past BvS’ box office intake. Now, we have a good movie no one knew existed.

 

[misslane38]

The marketing sucked people. Thats it. People didnt even know this movie was coming out. This needed a Suicide Squad level push. SS had a whole Rick Ross rap video with Jared Leto in it. The soundtrack was everywhere, the Bohemian Rhapsody trailer was incredible, social media was BUZZING about SS. That movie, had it been good, probably wouldve soared past BvS’ box office intake. Nobody knew this movie existed.

I don't know. The soundtrack for BOP had a lot of popular contemporary artists, and the week of release their singles were put out with music videos almost daily. I saw trailers constantly on TV, and there were smaller ads on social media platforms too. I can't blame them for not spending more on marketing in a way that would blow up the budget when it's possible marketing wasn't the key to success. The product itself has to generate its own buzz to some extent.

 

[writer0327]

They did the early review/screening thing with Shazam and it still had trouble building buzz

What Shazam and BOP needed was support. If this was a stable franchise they could've had Joker or Batman pop in to hook people in like they did for Suicide Squad but everything is all over the place it's easy to see this as an easy skip if you're not a fan

Honestly the smaller box offices are the growing pains of building out these other lesser known characters and franchises. Batman and Joker are household names, adding them to this film would have helped the bottom line, but its nice to the film have a modicum of success without big A list characters added to the mix.

 

[Greenlite]

The marketing sucked people. Thats it. People didnt even know this movie was coming out. This needed a Suicide Squad level push. SS had a whole Rick Ross rap video with Jared Leto in it. The soundtrack was everywhere, the Bohemian Rhapsody trailer was incredible, social media was BUZZING about SS. That movie, had it been good, probably wouldve soared past BvS’ box office intake. Now, we have a good movie no one knew existed.

I don't know. The soundtrack for BOP had a lot of popular contemporary artists, and the week of release their singles were put out with music videos almost daily. I saw trailers constantly on TV, and there were smaller ads on social media platforms too. I can't blame them for not spending more on marketing in a way that would blow up the budget when it's possible marketing wasn't the key to success. The product itself has to generate its own buzz to some extent.

I was complaining about the marketing in December and in hindsight IMO they still messed up.

There were buzz in fandom/online after their panels at the Brazilian comic con, and they didn't release the trailer to capitalize.

Then that soundtrack trailer was fantastic, but was released a week before release, what the hell.

I guess they wanted a really late push maybe the teens these days have a memory of 3 year olds, but it's an R rated film so those teens actually couldn't go.

If they brought their A game and a bit more energy with the trailers (like that soundtrack one), and box office still stay the same then that's the way it is...but both Shazam and BOP had pretty average promotions, even though Margot did her best promoting it.

 

[Greenlite]

and if they were smart enough, they should have done what they did with the Joker, so many incels going after BOP you could have used that to build up controversy, get CNN to write some BS article like they did with Joker, get people fired up, and give it exposure, and angry supporters and women will show up just to do an up yours to the incels, heck, maybe even incels will show up so they get an idea what to attack the film on.

=P

 

[writer0327]

The marketing sucked people. Thats it. People didnt even know this movie was coming out. This needed a Suicide Squad level push. SS had a whole Rick Ross rap video with Jared Leto in it. The soundtrack was everywhere, the Bohemian Rhapsody trailer was incredible, social media was BUZZING about SS. That movie, had it been good, probably wouldve soared past BvS’ box office intake. Now, we have a good movie no one knew existed.

The marketing could've been much better but the R rating feels like the bigger culprit. As much as I enjoyed the movie, there's nothing in it that demanded it to be rated R, cut out some of the F bombs and this could've easily been PG13.

 

[kguillou]

And last but not least: the title. “Birds of Prey” means nothing to the general public and doesnt have that same flash as something like “Suicide Squad.” Its a cool title plus you know, the whole popular hashtag #squadgoals is something that the movie was able to play off of. This should have been titled “Harley Quinn and the Birds of Prey.”

 

[Greenlite]

Skwad

Harley Quinn & Her Birdies

 

[SomeOldGuy]

 

[Micromind]

I suppose by Tomorrow, the worldwide Total would cross $150 mil.

 

[Mandon Knight]

Upto Tues latest…..

Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn - Box Office Mojo

 

[Greenlite]

'Sonic' Ready to Fend Off 'Call of the Wild' for Second Weekend at #1 - Box Office Mojo

Flying into third is WB's Birds of Prey, which performed as expected last weekend and this weekend we're anticipating a dip around -48% for a three-day around $9 million pushing the film's domestic gross over $74 million as it enters its third week in release.

 

[Greenlite]

I suppose by Tomorrow, the worldwide Total would cross $150 mil.

 

[DACrowe]

This is the type of performance that is the definition of mediocre. It is not so terrible that WB won't break even (even if it's on Blu-ray) but it is extremely underwhelming. It'll get past $200 million worldwide. If it cost less that wouldn't be too bad, but as it is, it's enough that (hopefully) none of the filmmakers get blackballed for it, but I wouldn't' expect a sequel.

 

[Micromind]

Yeah if this movie's budget was less, around $60 mil, then it wouldn't matter that it would finish near $210 mil. The reshoots they did for this increased the budget, in light of increased budget, smart move would have been to make it PG-13, which would have helped the movie somewhat.

And the title didn't help either, Harley Quinn and Birds of Prey should have been the title from the start, the other thing is they messed up with the release of songs by various artists, all of those songs should have been released more than a month before movie's release. And, they should have lifted that review embargo 3 days before the movie's release.

 

[Micromind]

For what's worth, BoP was #2 movie at Australia Box Office

 

[Omegabat]

Watched it and I think its a good movie, I preferred it to both Aquaman and Wonder Woman and its tied with Shazam for my favorite DCEU film. But it took me a while to make up my mind and watch it which says everything. This film just does not have a hook to draw in people and that's IMO the real reason for its decline. This film absolutely needed Batgirl at the least and Huntress and Canary needed to flashy and memorable. That doesn't mean they had to be sexualized but does anyone seriously believe that these costumes tickles artists fancy or will be cosplayed? they're not even costumes, they're just clothes. Black Mask is the only one who had distinct visual and even he got it near the end. Yes the marketing did fail but not in terms of reaching out. The film just didn't have an "IT" factor for the marketing team to actually focus on. WB thought that having Harley alone would suffice but they were wrong. I cant blame the marketing team when there is literally nothing to market about Cassandra Cain, Black Canary and Huntress. Cass was Batgirl, that's an easy one to market and they just had to go and eff it up. Canary is known for her cry, top tier fighting skills and biker motif yet the latter wasn't even in the movie while the cry was just used once and they kept it a surprise. It did work in the narrative but it ties the marketing down. Her fighting skills were good but she never went up against a proper fighter to sell herself. They should have brought KG Beast or something.

 

[Mani-Man]

Yeah if this movie's budget was less, around $60 mil, then it wouldn't matter that it would finish near $210 mil. The reshoots they did for this increased the budget, in light of increased budget, smart move would have been to make it PG-13, which would have helped the movie somewhat.

And the title didn't help either, Harley Quinn and Birds of Prey should have been the title from the start, the other thing is they messed up with the release of songs by various artists, all of those songs should have been released more than a month before movie's release. And, they should have lifted that review embargo 3 days before the movie's release.

Well, afterwards everyone is smarter...for WBs sake i hope so at least.
Im not sure where they were looking when making this mistakes...was it tumblr or what?
They choose a bad tactic for this movie and i dont know why.

Its a damn shame that it probably wont break even, the movie deserves all the success it could get.
It goes to show how important marketing and budget really is and that making a good movie alone isnt enough...it needs to make money above everything.

 

[MadVillainy]

The marketing sucked people. Thats it. People didnt even know this movie was coming out. This needed a Suicide Squad level push. SS had a whole Rick Ross rap video with Jared Leto in it. The soundtrack was everywhere, the Bohemian Rhapsody trailer was incredible, social media was BUZZING about SS. That movie, had it been good, probably wouldve soared past BvS’ box office intake. Now, we have a good movie no one knew existed.

And last but not least: the title. “Birds of Prey” means nothing to the general public and doesnt have that same flash as something like “Suicide Squad.” Its a cool title plus you know, the whole popular hashtag #squadgoals is something that the movie was able to play off of. This should have been titled “Harley Quinn and the Birds of Prey.”

Kguillou is hitting the nail on the head for the most part. The marketing isn't good. The title, which is part of the marketing, was trash.
And I think that's even more obvious because the WOM seems to be good for this. So people are interested and like the movie, they just didn't know it was out or were turned off from what they saw from the marketing

 

[MadVillainy]

Yeah if this movie's budget was less, around $60 mil, then it wouldn't matter that it would finish near $210 mil. The reshoots they did for this increased the budget, in light of increased budget, smart move would have been to make it PG-13, which would have helped the movie somewhat.

And the title didn't help either, Harley Quinn and Birds of Prey should have been the title from the start, the other thing is they messed up with the release of songs by various artists, all of those songs should have been released more than a month before movie's release. And, they should have lifted that review embargo 3 days before the movie's release.

I've seen the soundtrack mentioned a few times and I think people overestimate the impact of soundtracks. For sure, if you can get a great soundtrack like Black Panther The Album or Awesome Mix Vol. 1 that's a good thing but it's not like the BOP soundtrack has made any waves. And even if it did, that's not a gurantee for box office success. The Spider-Verse soundtrack had Sunflower which was a titanic hit but that didn't do a whole lot for the Spider-Verse box office

 

[SomeOldGuy]

 

[kguillou]

Soundtracks do help big time though. Black Panther’s soundtrack was REALLY popular, partly because it was spearheaded by The Weeknd whose red hot in the music world. Soundtracks can sometimes help movies break into the mainstream consciousness of awareness and interest. BOP had a good score but it aint like Black Panther’s or Suicide Squads were the hits were ALL over the radio and social media.