The title change, then, is done in the efforts to give movie goers a better indication of what the film is. That's what viewers will still see just before the movie plays and as its opening title.

At the same time, however, while this is the title appearing when searching for and booking tickets online, the official name of the movie does remain as Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn). This title change has been mandated by WB, and although no official reason has been given, it's clear that the intent is to put the focus on Harley in the hopes that attracts more viewers. Instead of Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), or even just Birds of Prey, those looking to purchase tickets for certain cinemas, such as AMC and Regal, will instead be booking to go and see a movie called Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey. a) acknowledging the movie has disappointed and b) trying to change things comes from the way the movie's title is appearing to potential customers. The biggest example so far of Warner Bros. In that sense, it could be argued that Birds of Prey (the movie) exaggerates Harley’s comic book carnage in the same way that it does the rest of the movie’s heroes - if it wasn’t for the fact that, even in the movie, there remains something over-the-top about what she does.Related: Harley Quinn Is Different (& Better) In Birds Of Prey Compared To Suicide Squad Harley is, traditionally, a particularly violent character - she doesn’t carry that mallet around just for the visual, no matter how cool it looks - but that violence has been, equally traditionally, outlandish and cartoonish in terms of impact (no pun intended). The wildcard in any comics-to-movie comparison is Harley Quinn, which only feels appropriate. Like Black Mask, his screen character is pretty much in league with the comic book original violence-wise. Victor Zsasz, meanwhile, is a character whose entire modus operandi is extreme cruelty, so it should come as no surprise that his comic book incarnation has been surprisingly violent, from trying to slash Batgirl’s throat to stabbing Alfred an almost-successful murder attempt. Both of the movie’s villains, Black Mask and Victor Zsasz, have particularly violent comic book pasts, at least in terms of implication, and their actions on the page are certainly of a piece with what takes place on the big screen Black Mask, after all, is the villain who had Catwoman’s sister eat her own husband after he’d been murdered in front of her, making someone’s face being cut off seem almost quaint.įor that matter, a character’s face being cut off may, potentially, be a comic book reference - in the rebooted “New 52” universe of DC’s post-2011 output, the Joker debuted in a story that saw his face sliced off he later reattached it with hooks and leather straps, because … comics. That said, it would be incorrect to say that Birds of Prey is entirely inconsistent with the characters it features when it comes to the violence on show.

That’s not to say that there weren’t moments that would have read as more violent and gory on screen than on the comic book page - the abstraction of artwork allows for someone being shot by a crossbow to read as more sanitized than it might otherwise appear, after all.

It wasn’t just Black Canary, leading martial artist, who fell into this trap Lady Shiva, officially the most deadly fighter in DC’s comic book universe, was briefly part of the team, and she also didn’t significantly up the violence quota. For the first 24 years of the property’s comic book existence, the series was not especially more violent than any other superhero comic book, and far more tame than many when it came to the level of damage felt by the various heroes and villains it featured, despite repeatedly featuring characters whose reputations relied on just how dangerous they reportedly were. In three of its four primary comic book incarnations to date, DC’s Birds of Prey has been a franchise that certainly offered a lot of action, but action that was closer to a PG-13 rating than anything too graphic.

Yet, it’s also not totally in keeping with the comic book canon that inspired Birds of Prey - well … not entirely.

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