Barbenheimer didn’t just work – it spun box office gold. The social media-fuelled fusion of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer brought US moviegoers back to the cinemas in record numbers over the weekend.
Barbie claimed the top spot with a massive $US155 million ($A230 million) in ticket sales from North American cinemas from 4243 locations, surpassing The Super Mario Bros. Movie as the biggest opening of the year and breaking the first weekend record for a film directed by a woman.
Oppenheimer also soared past expectations, taking in $US80.5 million from 3610 cinemas in the US and Canada.
It’s also the first time that one movie opened to more than $100 million and another movie opened to more than $80 million in the same weekend. When all is settled, it will likely turn out to be the fourth biggest box office weekend of all time with over $300 million industry-wide.
Barbie stars Margot Robbie in a brightly coloured comedy about the iconic doll, while Oppenheimer tells a haunting story about the making of the atomic bomb.
The two titles had cinemas buzzing over the weekend and filled with Barbie fans dressed in pink.
“Everybody was in,” said Jeff Bock, senior box office analyst at Exhibitor Relations Co. “All demographics showed up for these two films, and it’s exactly what Hollywood needed.”
Cinema going still lags pre-pandemic levels, prompting nagging questions about whether audiences have grown content to watch movies at home.
Hopes were high going into the summer as COVID-clogged production pipelines cleared and studios scheduled 30 per cent more films than last northern summer. But through mid-July, 2023 summer box office receipts were running about seven per cent below last year.
Then, Barbenheimer became a cultural moment, sending crowds to AMC Entertainment, Cineplex and other cinema chains. More than 200,000 people purchased tickets to see Barbie and Oppenheimer on the same day, according to the National Association of Theatre Owners.
Now, summer domestic ticket sales stand roughly one per cent ahead of the same point in 2022, research firm Comscore said, while year-to-date totals are up 16 per cent from 2022.
Still, the $US5.4 billion total so far this year ranks 19 per cent behind the pre-pandemic times of 2019.
“I’m tickled pink at this historic weekend,” gushed Jeff Goldstein, head of domestic theatrical distribution at Warner Bros, the studio that released Barbie.
“People are having a great time. The conversation is so upbeat and so positive.”
with AP
