Ali vs. Frazier, Hatfields vs. McCoys, Athens vs. Sparta.
Well, let’s not get carried away.
But with ‘Barbie’ vs. ‘Oppenheimer’, it’s safe to say that Hollywood hasn’t captured the public imagination in this fashion for quite some time. After weeks of internet memeification and questionable marketing ties, his two utterly contradictory Hollywood blockbusters arrive in theaters Thursday night. (A Barbie-inspired Burger King sandwich topped with what looks like chewed-up bubblegum.) Combined, these films have the potential to produce the largest crowd in any North American complex in four years. Yes, this number has not been seen since before the pandemic. said the office prophets.
“‘Barbie’ and ‘Oppenheimer’ are basically perfect opponents at the box office this weekend,” said Turner Classic Movies host Dave Carger. “Certainly, they are technically competitors, but they are primarily aimed at different audiences, and the Barbenheimer hype seems to only help both films.”
Greta Gerwig’s candy-coated “Barbie doll” was estimated to have made $145 million, excluding marketing costs, according to analysts who track audience attention and use complex formulas. It costs money and could make $100 million in the U.S. and Canada by Sunday. To predict box office performance. Christopher Nolan’s heavyweight “Oppenheimer” cost at least $100 million before its release, but domestic ticket sales are estimated at about $50 million during the same period.
Warner Bros. said advance sales were about $30 million and said it expects weekend ticket sales for “Barbie” to be close to $75 million. (Studios try hard to downplay expectations.) Studios have booked PG-13 comedies for about 4,200 screens in North America.
Universal Pictures, which produced the R-rated historical drama “Oppenheimer,” about the making of the atomic bomb, declined to comment. Nolan’s films are screened on about 3,600 screens in Japan.
The running time of “Barbie” is just under two hours. Since “Oppenheimer” spans three theaters, theaters are limited in the number of showings they can squeeze into on a weekend. However, “Oppenheimer” has the advantage of being able to play on most big screens in North America, with a ticket surcharge of up to $12 in New York. IMAX is Entire footprint The next three weeks will be Nolan’s work (to Tom Cruise’s disappointment, some screens will continue to run ‘Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1’ after last week’s release). hoped).
AMC Entertainment, the world’s largest movie theater chain, said Monday that more than 40,000 people had purchased tickets to see a double feature of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer,” up from 20,000 last week.
Hollywood desperately needs a weekend that either exceeds or meets expectations. This year was the year movie watching was supposed to finally recover from the pandemic. The pandemic has closed many theaters for months, accelerating the growth of home streaming services. Finally, cinema will regain its status as a cultural imperative.
But year-to-date ticket sales (about $5 billion) in the U.S. and Canada are down about 20% from the same period in 2019, according to comScore, which compiles box office data. Few hopes, such as the strong sales of the groundbreaking Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and the ultra-violent John Wick: Chapter 4, have led to the success of Indiana Jones and Indiana Jones. drowned out by the disappointing results of big-ticket series films like Dial of Fate”, “Ant-Man & Wasp: Quantumanias”, “Shazam! Wrath of the Gods and Fast X.
The latest film, “Mission: Impossible,” opened last weekend and delivered solid results, but fell short of what Hollywood had hoped.
Ticket buyers seem to be sick of new releases in the decades-old series. What are you doing successfully? For the most part, it’s about characters that haven’t made it to the big screen lately (the Super Mario Bros. movies), new chapters in lesser-known series (Creed III), and movies for audiences that Hollywood ignores. (“Sound of Freedom” being promoted by the right wing).
Despite taking over the world, Barbie has never made a big-budget movie of her own. “Oppenheimer” is based on the 2005 biography “American Prometheus” by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. “Both studios are committed to original films directed by celebrated authors interested in pushing boundaries,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior analyst at comScore. “These are not the tried-and-true safe bets that characterize the summer movie season.”
“Barbie” stars big movie stars like Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, but “Oppenheimer” casts the lesser-known Cillian Murphy in the title role. “Barbie” is for women, but “Oppenheimer” is for men. One of them represents what many movie buffs have an aversion to Hollywood: movies about toys. The other was written and directed by one of Hollywood’s most serious moviegoers.
Comedy to drama. The brightest and darkest sides of the human imagination. Create worlds, destroy worlds.
Contrast is attractive.
While rare, box office matchups like this aren’t without precedent. Just ask Nolan. In July 2008, his sinister Batman movie The Dark Knight (Warner Bros.) was replaced by Universal’s silly Mamma Mia! ’ and it was decided to confront head-on. His films were No. 1 that weekend, but both were explosive hits.
