Cathy Yan’s Birds Of Prey (And The Fantabulous Emancipation Of One Harley Quinn) didn’t quite soar in its opening weekend—the colorful new outing from DC brought in just $33 million in domestic ticket sales. The film, which sees Margot Robbie reprise and reinvent her Suicide Squad role, had a budget of $97.1 million, which makes it one of the more economic comic-book films. But now that tentpole films are on as regular a release schedule as any other production, opening weekend expectations are always high. Despite being met with mostly positive reviews (including our own), Birds Of Prey didn’t hit its projected $45 million.
Why were so few people on hand to witness Harley’s fantabulous emancipation and Rosie Perez wielding brass knuckles? There’s some speculation that plunking Harley Quinn, the character with the most name recognition here, at the end of the title could have hurt ticket sales. But Warner Bros. is already on the case—as Disney fan news site Stitch Kingdom noticed, the title has been changed to the punchier Harley Quinn: Birds Of Prey on the AMC app.
The ticket sites for other movie theater chains, including Regal Cinemas, were also updated to reflect the shorter title, which ScreenRant confirms was at the behest of Warner Bros.
A change in name or branding isn’t uncommon, even once a film has premiered—see Live Die Repeat: Edge Of Tomorrow, which picked up the first part of that title after Warner Bros. realized just how many people want to see Tom Cruise expire on screen (we assume). And from what we’ve seen in trailers and reviews, this is more of a solo Harley Quinn movie anyway, so putting her name front and center makes sense. Now we just have to find out where she got those gold harlequin-print overalls.