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Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) debuted with the second-highest Rotten Tomatoes score in the DCEU. In its earliest days, the franchise was far from a critical darling. Though the likes of Man of Steel, Batman v Superman, and Suicide Squad were all commercially successful, they were largely panned by critics and proved to be divisive. Of course, the DCEU reached its absolute nadir back in 2017 when Justice League became an unmitigated disaster, bombing at the box office amidst its negative reviews. Wonder Woman was the lone outlier of this initial slate, being Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.
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In the aftermath of Justice League, Warner Bros. retooled their DC films strategy to move away from the Marvel model of an interconnected shared universe, instead prioritizing solid, standalone movies. Over the past couple of years, the results have been significantly better, with the likes of Aquaman and Shazam earning praise en route to strong box office hauls (both movies now have sequels officially dated for 2022). Even Joker, which isn’t part of the DCEU continuity, was extremely successful and is up for 11 Oscars at the 92nd Academy Awards. The hope was Birds of Prey would be able to continue this hot streak, and it appears to have done just that.
Today, the first wave of Birds of Prey reviews went online, and when the embargo lifted the Rotten Tomatoes score was at 92%. That slightly eclipses Shazam’s 90% to be the DCEU’s second-highest score. Wonder Woman leads the pack with 93%. In the hours since, Birds of Prey’s score has dropped to 89%, but this is still an excellent start.
As of this writing, only 63 Birds of Prey reviews are on Rotten Tomatoes, so there are still many more to come in the next few days. Case in point: Joker has a whopping 543 reviews counted and Shazam has 390. That means the Birds of Prey score could fluctuate a bit as the next wave of reviews are published and it’ll be a little while before the final score is set in stone. Even with that in mind, Birds of Prey is shaping up to be another well-received DC film. Rotten Tomatoes already has a critics’ consensus reading, “With a fresh perspective, some new friends, and loads of fast-paced action, Birds of Prey captures the colorfully anarchic spirit of Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn.” Barring something unforeseen, the critics who haven’t weighed in yet will have similar sentiments, and Birds of Prey will be Certified Fresh in no time.
With that kind of positive word-of-mouth under its belt, Birds of Prey should prove to be a sizable box office hit. Initial projections that came out back in December pointed to the movie possibly having the lowest opening weekend in the DCEU, but odds are those fortunes will change and Birds of Prey will be a bigger draw than anticipated this weekend. And even if the film earned more middling reviews, its small budget (compared to other DCEU installments) ensures Birds of Prey doesn’t need to break the bank in order to be profitable. This should go down as a win-win for WB.
Source: Rotten Tomatoes
- Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020) release date: Feb 07, 2020
- Wonder Woman 1984 (2020) release date: Jun 05, 2020
- The Batman (2021) release date: Jun 25, 2021
- The Suicide Squad (2021) release date: Aug 06, 2021
- Black Adam (2021) release date: Dec 22, 2021
- Shazam 2 (2022) release date: Apr 01, 2022
- DC Super Pets (2022) release date: May 20, 2022
- The Flash (2022) release date: Jul 01, 2022
- Aquaman 2 (2022) release date: Dec 16, 2022
