I won't mince words: a second-weekend drop rate of nearly 50% is bad, considering that Birds of Prey's opening weekend was just $33 million domestically. (Had it opened to say over $100 million, a second-weekend drop of 48% would've been understandable and normal, but that wasn't exactly the case.) As I look over the demographic breakdown of this film's audience according to the exit polls, this movie's commercial problem has become apparent to me: younger women aren't watching it.

Younger women are the group that scores Birds of Prey the best and are obviously its main intended audience, and yet they compose only a minimal share of those who are going to the theater to see it. It's not that younger women watched it on opening weekend, were disappointed, and spread negative opinions on social media, it's that they haven't given it a chance in the first place. The legacy of Suicide Squad seems to loom larger over this sequel for them. And considering that the median age of any given film's viewing audience increases each successive week after its release, if women under 25 haven't hit the theater for this movie by now, they're not going to either. That's bad for the commercial fate of the picture because it means that Birds of Prey has no core audience, let alone a peripheral one.

In other words, yeah, Birds of Prey is a sequel to a movie people disliked, to which end few are willing to give it a chance, and those who are willing don't belong to the intended audience. It seems destined for a total domestic gross of less than $100 million, and thus to go down as a forgotten entry in the current DC movie "universe".  It's too bad because DC Films clearly took a risk by making this film and I had fun with it anyway. *sighs* What can you do?

I'm not sure if blaming the commercial failure of this movie on Suicide Squad is really appropriate here. For all the problems people had with that movie, if there was one positive, it's that people generally came away really liking Margot's Harley Quinn, and outside of her, BoP - far as I can tell - really has no other connection to Suicide Squad. WB also made a few generally well received DC movies since then, so the general audience should feel more comfortable going to see a DC movie now than they would have been in the immediate aftermath of Suicide Squad.

Suicide Squad 2 is releasing next summer, and I wouldn't be at all surprised - whether it's earned or not - if that movie does significantly better numbers than BoP, despite actually bearing the full brunt of the negative name recognition.

Eh, you might be right. I drew the connection to Suicide Squad because of the character Harley Quinn, like others here and elsewhere are. Everyone compares this movie against Suicide Squad and the fact that they both have the same main character is definitely the reason. Nonetheless, perhaps the term "sequel" is too literal to be appropriate in the light of a proper Suicide Squad 2 releasing in the near future, like you say.

Still, I can't think of a better explanation for these numbers than the combination of that connection (Birds of Prey's aforementioned connection to Suicide Squad in people's minds) on the one hand and the fact that, like I said before, it's not truly a masterpiece in its own right either, on the other, especially considering that, like it or not, Birds of Prey's small audience has generally liked it better than Suicide Squad by all indications.

I won't mince words: a second-weekend drop rate of nearly 50% is bad, considering that Birds of Prey's opening weekend was just $33 million domestically. (Had it opened to say over $100 million, a second-weekend drop of 48% would've been understandable and normal, but that wasn't exactly the case.) As I look over the demographic breakdown of this film's audience according to the exit polls, this movie's commercial problem has become apparent to me: younger women aren't watching it.

Younger women are the group that scores Birds of Prey the best and are obviously its main intended audience, and yet they compose only a minimal share of those who are going to the theater to see it. It's not that younger women watched it on opening weekend, were disappointed, and spread negative opinions on social media, it's that they haven't given it a chance in the first place. The legacy of Suicide Squad seems to loom larger over this sequel for them. And considering that the median age of any given film's viewing audience increases each successive week after its release, if women under 25 haven't hit the theater for this movie by now, they're not going to either. That's bad for the commercial fate of the picture because it means that Birds of Prey has no core audience, let alone a peripheral one.

In other words, yeah, Birds of Prey is a sequel to a movie people disliked, to which end few are willing to give it a chance, and those who are willing don't belong to the intended audience. It seems destined for a total domestic gross of less than $100 million, and thus to go down as a forgotten entry in the current DC movie "universe".  It's too bad because DC Films clearly took a risk by making this film and I had fun with it anyway. *sighs* What can you do?

That is the point many of us "haters" point out. The company make a product to pander to a demographic that is vocal about the toxic of what the genre is, and when they go and do the product that group asked they just don't watch.

I don't know - I think marketing had a lot to do with it. I had no idea this was releasing until the week of. Plus, Birds of Prey in itself is a less catchy title than Harley Quinn, that's why they tried to rebrand it.

Not sure. DC's marketing strategy here was based on their experience from marketing the Supergirl series. They found, through that experience, that a low-key approach to marketing based primarily on social media is the most effecting at drawing in a female target audience because they found that female fans prefer to do much of the marketing themselves, giving it more of a sense of community and of being participatory in nature, so they repeated that approach in their marketing of the Wonder Woman movie, to great success. It didn't surprise me, hence, that they tried to replicate that approach for Birds of Prey.

I will say this though, the commercials that they made were bland and didn't highlight the real humor and fun of the movie, as others here have pointed out. That could certainly have been a significant factor as well.