Birds Of Prey Officially Certified Fresh Despite Score Dropping Slightly

Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) is officially “certified fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes with a respectable 87% score. After its debut, the film briefly held the highest Rotten Tomatoes score in the history of the DCEU at 92%, but it only had 49 reviews at the time. Now, with 124 critic reviews on record, the score takes a slight dip but is still performing better than some of the earlier DCEU releases, like Man of Steel, Batman v Superman, and Justice League. That’s excellent news for director Cathy Yan, and stars Margot Robbie, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, and Rosie Perez, on the eve of the film’s release.

Justice League, in particular, was a massive failure at both the box office and in the eyes of critics. Warner Bros. completely overhauled their strategy in its wake to focus less on building a shared universe (like Marvel’s Cinematic Universe) and more on developing standalone films. Since then, movies such as the Oscar-nominated Joker and the critically-adored comedy Shazam! have earned praise from fans, and raked in huge box office hauls. Birds of Prey, a spin-off that follows Harley Quinn (Robbie) from her previous appearance in 2016’s Suicide Squad, appears to continue the DCEU’s successful, strategic, course-correction.

Birds of Prey was officially declared “#CertifiedFresh” by Rotten Tomatoes on Twitter the night before the film’s theatrical release. The 87% score makes Birds of Prey the third-highest scoring DCEU film behind Shazam! and Wonder Woman, which have 90% and 93%, respectively. The movie’s opening round of positive reviews could signal another massive hit for Warner Bros., who just celebrated Joker becoming the most profitable comic book movie of all time.

The 124 early reviews for Birds of Prey are undoubtedly a good sign, but Rotten Tomatoes scores are in a constant state of flux for the first few days of a movie’s release, so things could change. A quick look at some of the other DCEU movies on the site reveals anywhere from 391 to 543 total reviews per film months after release. So, as additional reviews are added to Birds of Prey’s overall score, there could be some fluctuations before a final number is declared.

The critical reception of Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) might be the least of Warner Bros. worries, if the film fails to perform at the box office. Less than a month before the movie’s February 7 release date, box office predictions suggested it might have the lowest opening for a DCEU film yet. With an estimated budget of $81 million, the movie doesn’t have to pull in Joker-level numbers to be profitable. Still, it would be nice for the second DCEU film directed by a woman to at least achieve Wonder Woman-levels of box office success.