I'm wondering if the trailer is the problem. I haven't seen the movie, nor had I seen the trailer until just now. I was afraid the film was going to be super woke when I heard the synopsis of it a few months back. I can't really remember what the synopsis was beyond Harley breaking up with the Joker and working with the characters seen in the trailer.
I just watched the trailer, and the movie looks cheap. I can't tell if it wants to be serious or funny. There appears to be a musical number in the trailer which causes me to have flashbacks to Ghostbusters 2016. I don't really see anything enticing about the movie. That said, I know a couple of people who have seen it and said it was actually pretty good and that it isn't woke at all. Professional reviews are trash, so I don't pay attention to those but the general audience scores seem decent for the few people who have been willing to give it a chance.
It may not just be the uninteresting trailer that's at fault here. It may come down to the fact that all the female centric movies that have been done recently have been absolute trash and people are afraid this one will be just as bad. I think people have gotten tired of it and assume (just as I did here) that anything female centric will be anti-male. Like it or not, the fact of the matter is that the main consumer of comic book based films are males in a specific age range. I think we've now become conditioned to be weary of any all female film.
The sad thing is, that this is the exact genre where an all female cast can really work and draw in crowds of both men and women. Unfortunately, all the female centric and anti-male movies that have been made over the last few years has drive all the men away in a genre where something like this would have been an almost guaranteed success story about five years ago.
The blue checkmark crowd, feminists, SJW's, and anyone else with a rabidly anti-male agenda has effectively done more harm than good and if this is in fact a decent movie, it will stand as proof of that. Of course, the people responsible for churning out the toilet logs of cinema that we've seen lately won't see it that way. Ghostbusters 2016, Charlie's Angels, Terminator Dark Fate etc. don't stand as proof of this concept nearly as well. Those films have other issues that compound their problems and their poor acceptance.
Ghostbusters 2016 was a bad movie for reasons I don't want to get into. The characters being female were actually the least of the films problems. Charlie's Angels was boring, badly written and overall bland. It didn't have a good or likable cast, no griping story and of course, it was infused with identity politics to its own detriment. Terminator Dark Fate is one of the few films I think genuinely suffers from franchise fatigue. Not because there are too many films necessarily, but because the batting average for them has been abysmal. Mediocrity is the best you can hope for out of a Terminator film beyond the first two installments. Dark Fate **** on the characters in the first two movies and was far too derivative. To an extent, that's what we have here with Birds of Prey.
Of course, I haven't seen Birds of Prey myself, but I trust the opinions of people who I know that have seen it. If it is at least decent, then unfortunately, the reasons for its horrendous performance at the box office will not be understood by Hollywood. The liberal media and SJW fanatics will double down on their accusations of sexism, racism or any other isms they think will stick. They will fail to realize that all the bullshit politics they've been shoving down our throats has blown up in their collective faces. Consumers have been burned too many times by anti-male films with female centric casts. We've seen men demonized far too long in these films and enough is enough. Add to that the fact that DC's box office performance has had more ups and downs than a roller coaster ride.
DC's burned comic book and movie fans way too many times. Let's look at the facts. In the DCEU alone, we've had a number of films.
Man of Steel - Mixed response
Batman v Superman - Poor response
Suicide Squad - Mixed response
Wonder Woman - Well received
Justice League - Poor response
Aquaman - Well received
Shazam! - I'm unsure on this one. I think it was decent, but it doesn't fit the tone of the other films and I'm not sure it attracts the same audiences. It's also clearly geared for younger viewers than the rest of the series. While there are nods to the other films, it stands alone.
Money wise, it's been a crap shoot to say the least. Some of the films have done well, but only Aquaman was a stellar performer that's on the level of a Marvel movie. Once you factor in marketing and distribution, the other films have been mediocre to poor performers at the box office. Birds of Prey is on track to maybe double it's budget worldwide. That may not be enough to actually turn a profit. If it doesn't start doing better in the U.S., it's going to be an outright flop.
Of course, it's possible that comic book fatigue is starting to set in and this film's performance could be in part a sign that this is the case. Most of the major blockbusters over the last decade have been Marvel films. Those movies have also set an impossible standard where anything outside of a comic book movie has to meet unrealistic expectations of crossing a billion dollars in revenue, or studios don't want to deal with it. Except Netflix, they'll make anything. Right now studios don't want to bet on anything that isn't a sure thing. Of course, female centric is what's in as far as they are concerned, but audiences have had enough.
If this is a good movie it will be a shame that its performing so poorly. I think it's a combination of factors that have led to its poor reception. If people aren't going to theaters to even see it, then there are a lot of things going on. Other DCEU films like Batman V Superman were bad, but people went to the theater to see it. The drop offs are how you know it was poorly received. But initial financials for it looked good. This one isn't even making it out of the gate it seems.
I'd say watching how the media handles this will be interesting but it won't. The headline is that men are sexist and aren't seeing the movie because of the female cast. Every other factor that plays into how this is performing will go unnoticed.
