Birds Of Prey Has Mild Box Office Opening

Birds of Prey, DC’s first coming book movie of the year, did not have a great opening night. And it looks like it’s not going to do well at the box office over its opening weekend either.

According to Deadline, the Thursday night preview made $4 million. Birds of Prey is projected to see $12.6 million for Friday and $33 million for the entire weekend. That’s not a great start for the movie.

Comparatively, last year’s Shazam made $5.9 million on preview night, and ended up grossing $365 million worldwide. And while it did release in April–when people are more likely to go to the theaters–the film was rated PG-13, which has a much broader audience than Birds of Prey’s R rating. October’s Oscar-nominated Joker–which was also rated R–made $96 million on its opening weekend, and had a total global gross of over $1 billion.

Over on GameSpot’s sister site Metacritic, Birds of Prey has a score of 60 out of 55 reviews, 33 of which are positive, 20 mixed, and two negative. While, critically, the film is doing alright, the hype and excitement for the movie just doesn’t seem to be there for the mainstream audience.

In GameSpot’s review of Birds of Prey, Meg Downey said, “It’s the sort of kinetic, high energy romp that comes with built-in replay value, and proves exactly why Harley Quinn has become such an endearing, beloved character in the pop-culture pantheon. If this is the direction the DCEU is headed, the future’s looking bright.”

For more on Birds of Prey, find out more about the ending of the movie, whether or not Joker is in the movie, and the connection to Harley’s first appearance in Suicide Squad.