Well, this is kind of unfortunate. Birds of Prey has been facing an unexpected swell of support from critics over the past couple of days. As of this writing, the film has a Certified Fresh rating of 83%, with 215 reviewers weighing in on the matter. It’s obviously not a perfect score, but there’s a lot of love being shown to this movie. When you take into account all the concern and hate it got from the marketing, that’s actually pretty impressive.

But now, it looks like the Harley Quinn-led, female-centric DC flick is off to a rocky start Deadline is reporting that, following its $4 million Thursday haul, it’s looking to get a total of $12.6 million. Unfortunately, that $12.6 million haul looks to include last night’s $4 million, so that makes today’s numbers that much less impressive. With this in mind, the movie is in track to hit $33.5 million domestically.

This is far under the $50 million to $55 million that was being projected, and even lower than Warner Bros. more modest $45 million. Of course, we know that the domestic picture isn’t the only thing that matters. Given that this was a reported $84.5 million production — one that seemed to skimp on marketing — who knows how things will actually play out. But it’s not a great start.

RELATED – Birds Of Prey Is Certified Fresh On Rotten Tomatoes, Is It Time To Re-Think The Marvel Vs DC Debate?

It’s especially disappointing given the emotional stock star and producer Margot Robbie put into this movie. 

“What I really want to see is a girl gang film,” Robbie told BBC Radio 1 in a recent interview. “I don’t get to see action films with a female ensemble ever. The last one that really resonated with me was the Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, Lucy Liu Charlie’s Angels films, which I loved growing up. I was like, ‘That was years ago. Why can’t we have more of that.’”

Of course, there are plenty of other factors here. As I mentioned above, the marketing hasn’t been perceived well by people, it’s violent and rated R, and it follows a character from a bad movie (Suicide Squad). You can’t pin it on the female-led problem. But studios are risk-averse, and they tend to take the wrong messages from failures. If this doesn’t pan out, I can see it be a long while before another female ensemble action film.

But, what do you think? With reviews hitting, it does seem like overall anticipation has been raised slightly. Do you think strong word of mouth can help overcome this opening slump? Let us know your thoughts down below!

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SOURCE: Deadline, BBC Radio 1