Despite glowing reviews from critics and a stellar cast, Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) brought in a meager $33.25 million at the domestic box office on opening weekend, performing well under the expected $40-60 million that many analysts had predicted prior to its release. This makes it the weakest opening of the DCEU, though many have taken to Twitter in its defense – and for good reason; it’s a fantastic and fun way to spend an evening with Harley Quinn and her gang of misfits.
But love it or hate it, an interesting comparison from Gitesh Pandya has brought some perspective to the film’s box office performance. 2017’s popular R-rated February release John Wick: Chapter 2, a movie very similar to Birds of Prey in violence levels and tone, opened at just $30.4 million. This means that Birds of Prey has actually performed a good bit better than the average R-rated February release, and in doing so, it’s already made back its budget and found itself in a nice spot going forward.
John Wick: Chapter 2 went on to gross $171.5 worldwide, far surpassing its budget of only $40 million and helping secure the franchise for years to come with more films and even a television show in development. With the DCEU currently suffering from a lack of cohesion and plenty of uncertainty going forward, it’s still wonderful to see that Birds of Prey has done as well as it has.
If it manages to continue beating the pace of John Wick: Chapter 2 as it continues its run, it’ll put it on track to gross nearly $200 million worldwide. That sounds like a pretty good reason to keep Harley Quinn batting bad guys in the face for another installment, wouldn’t you say?