8 Reasons Why The Suicide Squad Just Bombed At The Box-Office

3. The Last Harley Quinn Movie Was A Flop

Birds Of Prey Harley Quinn
Warner Bros. Pictures

If Margot Robbie continues to knock it out of the park as Harley Quinn, she might one day end up in that category of "born to play this role" superhero actors, like Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, and Robert Downey Jr as Iron Man.

But as beloved as the deranged court jester is in online circles, it might be time to accept the fact that Harley just isn't that popular among general audiences.

The character clearly had some sort of appeal with the original Suicide Squad, but that had completely vanished by the time the underwhelming Birds Of Prey released last year. Yes, that movie was hampered by its awfully long original title and its pointless R-rating (a huge mistake considering that many youngsters had fallen in love with Harley in the PG-13 Suicide Squad), but it underperformed regardless, earning $201 million worldwide on an $84 million budget.

Momentum is a very real thing in the movie world, and coming into The Suicide Squad, Harley didn't have any. She didn't give Birds Of Prey a massive bump, and clearly, she didn't do a whole lot for this movie, either.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!