Twenty years ago, the general audience wouldn’t really hear or care about box office numbers. But the age of the Internet has turned movie production and box office results into a game of narratives and how opening weekend numbers or re-shoots definitely make or break a movie.
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One film that for its box office results blown out of proportion was the female-led “Birds of Prey” which didn’t exactly break records, but was labeled as a commercial disappointment despite a successful run (before theaters shut down due to a pandemic and all that). Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter, director Cathy Yan expressed disappointment over the narratives being written about the comic-book movie.
“I know that the studio had really high expectations for the movie — as we all did,” the director said. “There were also undo expectations on a female-led movie, and what I was most disappointed in was this idea that perhaps it proved that we weren’t ready for this yet. That was an extra burden that, as a woman-of-color director, I already had on me anyway. So, yes, I think there were certainly different ways you could interpret the success or lack of success of the movie, and everyone has a right to do that. But, I definitely do feel that everyone was pretty quick to jump on a certain angle.”
Thought “Birds of Prey” was technically a sequel to “Suicide Squad,” there were few call-backs to the DC villain-led movie. Likewise, Yan discussed how they tweaked Harley Quinn’s look for the new film without making the change jarring. “We kept her tattoos, but then we also doctored them and grounded them in character and what she was going through,” she said. “The ‘J’ turned into the mermaid, and ‘pudding’ was turned into ‘pudding cups.’ We kept her hair, and we thought, ‘What if she’s not taking care of it as well? What if it just kinda grows out?’ In terms of costumes, it was a very character-based transition from what she would wear when she was with the Joker and then what she would wear when she’s on her own and making these decisions for herself.”