‘Barbenheimer’ sweeps North American box offices in historic weekend
- Barbie and Oppenheimer, two polar opposite films debuted simultaneously in a match-up dubbed ‘Barbenheimer’
- They helped North American cinemas turn in the best weekend since Avengers: Endgame made its debut in April 2019
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Warner Bros’ Barbie conquered North American box offices in its debut weekend as it raked in a stunning US$155 million, while the other half of the movie-going event of the summer, the dark biopic Oppenheimer, also scored big with US$80.5 million in revenue, industry estimates reported on Sunday.
Legions of pink-clad film-goers swarmed theatres to give Barbie the biggest opening weekend of any film this year – and the biggest ever for a female director – said industry monitor Exhibitor Relations.
The much-anticipated “Barbenheimer” cinematic weekend, during which Barbie and Universal’s Oppenheimer were both released, spurred hundreds of thousands of people to take in both flicks, organising their own double features.
The coincidental same-day release of the two starkly different but highly anticipated films – one following an iconic doll ready to paint the world pink and the other about the scientist who helped invent the atomic bomb – created a bottom-up pop-culture phenomenon that transcended the individual marketing for either.
Together, they also provided a shot in the arm for theatres hit hard by the pandemic as well as the rise of streaming services. It was the best weekend since Avengers: Endgame made its debut in April 2019.
“The subtext of the joke of ‘Barbenheimer’ is that these couldn’t be two more different films,” David A. Gross, of Franchise Entertainment Research, said.
Oppenheimer: Christopher Nolan’s superb study of atomic bomb’s ‘father’
At the same time, he added, “The movie industry has a very healthy record of accommodating two big pictures. Moviegoers go when there are hot films.”
According to industry estimates, some 200,000 people were thought to have purchased tickets to both films on the same day.
Emma McNealy, 35, was one of them.
“I had heard online people were planning to do it and it sounded funny to me,” the account manager said. “At first I wasn’t planning to because I didn’t feel like anyone else would want to spend the whole day doing this for the bit, but luckily a friend was in.”
While both films fuelled interest in the other, it was Barbie that pulled her in to try the double feature.
“I am sure I would have watched (Oppenheimer) eventually, but not on opening weekend,” she said. “I think a lot of women like that a Barbie is getting more layers in this telling, it’s not just candy-coated fluff.”
Millions more were likely to catch both films on separate days.
“This was a phenomenal experience for people who love films on the big screen,” president and CEO of the National Association of Theatre Owners Michael O’Leary said in a statement Sunday.
“It was a truly historic weekend.”
The “Barbenheimer” films together left a massive gulf between the weekend’s top two box office spots and the number three slot, occupied by Sound of Freedom.
Barbie: Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling star in hilarious comedy-musical
The controversial action thriller from Santa Fe Films and Angel Studios, which critics say plays into QAnon conspiracy theories, brought in US$20.14 million.
Fourth and fifth place saw the sort of franchise sequels that have come to dominate box office recently.
Paramount’s Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, the latest in the long-running series starring Tom Cruise, brought in US$19.5 million.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, from Disney, brought in US$6.7 million. This “Indy” episode, likely the last, again stars Harrison Ford as a whip-cracking archeologist.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
