The summer’s two most anticipated films are delivering on their promises at the North American box office: The Barbie doll film, which was preceded by an intense marketing campaign, had its best-ever opener of 2023 with $197.5 million over the weekend, ahead of the atomic bomb designer’s biographical film Oppenheimer ($106 million).
These numbers, released by Exhibitor Relations and Comcost firms, should allow cinemas across the United States and Canada to post their best single-weekend earnings since the COVID-19 pandemic that hit the industry hard.
“This weekend clearly shows that there’s simply no better way to see a movie than at the cinema,” said Michael O’Leary, president of the National Association of Theater Owners in the United States (NATO), speaking of a truly historic weekend for cinemas, eroded by competition from streaming platforms like Netflix.
The two highly anticipated films are far apart: on one side is Barbie (director: Greta Gerwig) and her legions of fans dressed all in pink during screenings, on the other side Christopher Nolan’s new work (Inception, Interstellar), which paints the sinuous portrait of American physicist Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967), the designer of the atomic bomb, with Cillian Murphy in the title role.
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Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer in “Oppenheimer”
Photo: Universal
double program
Against the backdrop of a strike by Hollywood actors and screenwriters, these simultaneous releases sparked the event, a “Barbenheimer” phenomenon that even swept social media.
According to NATO, more than 200,000 people had planned to see both films on the same day over the weekend, which Emma McNealy, a 35-year-old account manager from Colorado, did.
“I saw on the internet that people wanted to do it and it seemed funny to me,” she told Agence France-Presse, ignoring that Barbie takes precedence. I’m sure I would have seen (Oppenheimer) at some point, but not the weekend it came out, she explained.
I think a lot of women appreciate that Barbie’s story is more expansive and that it’s not just about a candy cane doll,” she adds of Greta Gerwig’s film.
Flavie Sauvageau’s report.
Records for Barbie
Backed by an intense marketing campaign from toymaker Mattel and Warner Bros., this comedy with feminist accents directed by Lady Bird performs better than Super Mario, inspired by the famous video game character ($192 million in early April) or the sequel to James Cameron’s Avatar (Avatar: The Way of the Water, $176 million in December 2022).
In a fun and tongue-in-cheek reimagining that takes dripping pink and sequins to the second tier, Barbie, played by Margot Robbie – Ryan Gosling plays Ken – is asked to swap her heels for Birkenstock sandals to step out of her perfect world of Barbieland and into the real world.
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Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie in Greta Gerwig’s Barbie.
Photo: Screenshot from the trailer of the film.
For David Gross, who publishes the specialized FranchiseRE newsletter, this launch is a record.
He writes that no comedy film of any kind has ever surpassed $113 million in a three-day opening weekend.
It’s also the best theatrical release by a woman-directed film in North America, ahead of Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman (2017) and Captain Marvel (2019), co-directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, according to industry sources.
Oppenheimer, produced by Universal Pictures, also makes a strong debut for a three-hour film, grossing $106 million.
A great start, according to David Gross, complemented by Barbie and Oppenheimer. The viewers move when there are good films, he emphasizes.