Birds of Prey kinda gets a new 'Harley Quinn' title after film's low box office debut

After Warner Bros.' Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) failed to hit box office debut projections this past weekend, the film's title on e-ticket websites has been amended to simply "Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey" in a supposed effort to draw in customers who may have been confused by the original moniker.

The new title — which makes it perfectly clear that this is a Harley Quinn joint — is currently what awaits ticket-buying audiences on the websites for AMC, Regal, and Cinemark theaters.

Normally, it's rare for a studio to upend the name of a blockbuster title after so much heavy duty marketing, but WB is no stranger to this ploy. Back in 2014, the company lopped off "Live Die Repeat" from Doug Liman's sci-fi Groundhog Day project, Edge of Tomorrow when it hit Blu-ray and DVD release.

According to Alisha Grauso over at Atom Tickets, however, the change is only "for display/search purposes only for vendors and theaters, not an official title change."

This fits in with a new report from TheWrap, which claims that the title change was purely a theater chains decision and the studio had nothing to do with it.

Of course, BoP fans immediately noticed that something was amiss and took to Twitter to spread the news of the film's title switch-up as far and wide as possible. Most folks aren't too pleased about it.

Upon hitting theaters last Friday, Birds of Prey was only able to peck out a small domestic opening of $33.25 million rather than early estimates of $52 - $55 million. The DCEU project from director Cathy Yan fared a little better overseas with an initial haul of $48 million.

As Entertainment Weekly postulates, the underwhelming performance may have stemmed from the movie's R-rating, which prevented younger people from buying tickets. The outlet writes that the movie needs around $250 - 300 million to break even on its $80 million budget (plus marketing spend). With $79 million at the global box office so far, it isn't out of the game just yet.

Written by Christina Hodson (Bumblebee), Birds of Prey finds Harley (Margot Robbie) striking out on her own after the Joker dumps her sometime after the events of 2016's Suicide Squad.

Warner Bros. did not immediately respond to SYFY WIRE's request for comment