Birds of Prey performed better than The Suicide Squad at the opening day box office. The Suicide Squad just hit theaters and HBO Max on August 6. The film is written and directed by James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy), which goes in a different direction than David Ayer's 2016 Suicide Squad. The standalone sequel is a part of the DC Extended Universe (DCEU) and follows an ensemble cast of supervillains, as they must work together to destroy a Nazi-era laboratory and save the world.

Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn hit theaters back on February 7, 2020. The film is directed by Cathy Yan (Dead Pigs) and written by Christina Hodson (Bumblebee). The story is set around Harley (Margot Robbie) after having a bad breakup with the Joker. With him no longer around to provide her protection, Gotham City crime lord Roman Sionis begins to hunt her down. However, she must work with others in order to fight back. While the film was well-received, Birds of Prey's performance at the box office was disappointing.

Related: How Birds Of Prey Fits Into The Suicide Squad's Timeline

Deadline reports that The Suicide Squad performed beneath Birds of Prey in the opening day box office total. The most recent DCEU film opened in 4,002 theaters with $12.1 million, which includes the $4.1 million it received in Thursday preview showings. Meanwhile, the 2020 film brought in $12.9 million on its opening day. Analysts projected that The Suicide Squad fans would front-load the weekend by purchasing tickets for Thursday and Friday, with a drop in attendance as the weekend progresses.

Harley Quinn cries while bleeding from the nose

The industry estimates that based on The Suicide Squad's performance, it will likely bring in somewhere within the $20 million range for the opening weekend, which is significantly under the $30 million that Warner Bros. was expecting from this title. Birds of Prey finished its opening weekend with a low $33 million, which places Gunn's film a few million short of that. The 2020 film went on to bring in a total of $201.9 million worldwide, although it needed to bring in around $300 million to break even.

There's a lot of speculation as to why Gunn's film isn't doing better at the box office, especially with moviegoers really enjoying his work on the Guardians of the Galaxy films with Marvel. While the current state of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic will likely be blamed, other movies such as Jungle Cruise performed rather well within the same climate. It's possible that The Suicide Squad could perform much better on the HBO Max streaming service, similar to what happened with Mortal Kombat. However, it's more than likely that the film being attached to the disappointing 2016 Suicide Squad drove some audiences away. Deadline's point that the marketing didn't do enough to define whether this is a reboot or a sequel is particularly interesting. Stay tuned for more information on how HBO Max judges the performance of The Suicide Squad on the streaming platform.

Next: Suicide Squad 2: Why Harley Quinn Has Changed So Much

Source: Deadline

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