Despite being geared towards female audiences, the opening weekend for Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) had a mostly male audience. As the DCEU’s first R-rated film, Birds of Prey offers a raucous and colorful take on one of DC Comics’ famous female teams. It stars Margot Robbie, reprising her role as Harley Quinn from 2016’s Suicide Squad, alongside Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Ella Jay Basco, Ewan McGregor, Chris Messina, and Rosie Perez.

Birds of Prey scored mostly positive reviews and has notched a Rotten Tomatoes score of 80% as of this writing (down from the start of the weekend, but still Certified Fresh). Despite this, however, Birds of Prey found itself struggling to meet expectations at the box office. The film was initially expected to make somewhere round $50 million, but in the end Birds of Prey only earned $33.2 million. This marked one of the lowest openings for a DC film and the worst of the entire DCEU.

Now that the dust has settled following the disappointing news, more stats are emerging about Birds of Prey’s weekend performance. Many expected women to come out in droves to see the female-fronted film, but according to Variety, the majority of ticket buyers were male. PostTrack surveys calculated the audience to be 54% male and 65% over the age of 25. While the gender split is close to 50-50, it still indicates that women weren’t as interested in Harley’s latest adventure.

The Birds of Prey audience being 54% male instead of female is curious, since the filmmakers and marketing clearly strove to reach female moviegoers. The film itself is a decidedly feminist tale that doesn’t hit people over the head with it. It would be easy to write it off as women not being interested in comic book films, but that is definitely not the case. The successes of Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman indicate a real appetite for female-driven superhero movies like Birds of Prey. It could just be that people weren’t interested in the Birds of Prey, or that the critical disappointment of Suicide Squad scared them off.

Regardless of why, it’s still disappointing that Birds of Prey under-performed. It’s a delightfully fun and fresh take on the characters, especially Robbie’s Harley and Winstead’s Huntress. Those who did see the film reacted positively, as evidenced by its 81% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. Birds of Prey could make up ground in the weeks to come if word of mouth draws more people in, and with next weekend being a holiday weekend, more people could head to the movies. As it stands right now though, Birds of Prey is struggling to find its target audience.

More: Birds of Prey Ending Explained: Harley Quinn’s DCEU Future

Source: Variety

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