‘Birds of Prey’ Beats ‘Bad Boys’ but Ticket Sales Fall Short

(Bloomberg) -- “Birds of Prey” broke the three-week winning streak of “Bad Boys for Life” and led the weekend box office in North America. But the film fell short of estimates and is looking like a flop. The DC Comics installment still has a chance to catch up next weekend, which includes Valentine’s Day and President’s Day.

• The Warner Bros. film earned $33 million in its first weekend in wide release, Comscore Inc. said Monday. That’s despite an 81% positive rating for the comic book flick on Rotten Tomatoes. “Birds of Prey” is “richly hued, madly inventive, gleefully violent and happily slapdash,” wrote the Wall Street Journal.

Key Insights

• The theater industry was hoping the newest comic book film would “kick-start the next upswing,” BoxOffice Pro analyst Shawn Robbins said in a blog post. But the R-rating of the movie may have put audiences off.

• Overall ticket sales for the year are up 9.6% from the same period last year, buoyed by the success of “Bad Boys for Life” and World War I epic “1917.” The latter film came up Sunday short in the race for best picture at the Oscars. The winner, the South Korean comedy “Parasite,” had sales of $1.56 million.
• No other new releases this weekend were expected to crack the top 10 spots. NBCUniversal’s “Dolittle,” a retelling of the story of the eccentric English doctor who can talk to animals, took the fourth spot, while Sony’s “Jumanji: The Next Level,” continued its strong run, landing in fifth place.

Get More

• See the weekend release schedule.
• See Box Office Pro’s long-range forecast.

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