Box Office Sensation: ‘Barbie‘ Shatters Records with $162M Opening, ‘Oppenheimer’ Impresses at $82.4M.
The summer box office has exploded with excitement!
Greta Gerwig’s empowering film ‘Barbie’ has set a groundbreaking record, opening to a remarkable $162 million domestically. This figure, usually reserved for male-driven superhero blockbusters or major franchise films like the final Harry Potter installment, exceeded all expectations initially set at $90 million to $110 million. ‘Barbie’ became a driving force behind one of the most successful weekends in cinema history, even surpassing Sunday’s already-stupendous gross of $155 million.
The film, bringing to life the iconic Mattel fashion doll, also wowed audiences in international markets, amassing an impressive $182 million from 70 countries. It claimed the top opening for a Warner Bros. title in key territories, including Mexico ($22.3 million), Brazil ($15.9 million), and Australia ($14.6 million). In the U.K., it secured a staggering $22.9 million, marking the studio’s highest opening since the pandemic. While predictions suggested a modest performance in Asian markets, ‘Barbie’ exceeded expectations in China with $8.2 million.
Within North America, ‘Barbie’ achieved the most significant domestic opening ever for a film directed by a woman, a remarkable feat. It surpassed previous records set by Patty Jenkins ‘Wonder Woman’ with $103.3 million in 2017 and ‘Captain Marvel’ with $153 million in 2019, directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck.
Additionally, ‘Barbie’ smashed several other records, including claiming the top spot for 2023’s biggest opening, outpacing ‘The Super Mario Bros. Movie’ ($146.3 million). It also outperformed major releases like ‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’ ($120.7 million), ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’ ($118.4 million), and ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’ ($106.9 million), which struggled to breach the $100 million mark.
For its lead stars, Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, ‘Barbie’ marked their most substantial opening to date, and it became the highest-grossing three-day debut for a toy-based movie, surpassing ‘Transformers: Dark of the Moon’ ($115.9 million). Furthermore, ‘Barbie’ delivered Warner Bros.’s largest non-DC franchise or sequel opening.
As ‘Barbie’ dazzled the box office, Christopher Nolan’s ‘Oppenheimer,’ a three-hour R-rated historical drama centered on J. Robert Oppenheimer and the development of the atomic bomb, also made an impressive impact. Surpassing expectations, the film grossed $82.4 million domestically, even higher than the earlier estimate of $80.5 million. This marked Nolan’s third-biggest domestic debut, trailing behind ‘The Dark Knight Rises ($160.9 million) and ‘The Dark Knight’ ($158.4 million), without accounting for inflation. ‘Oppenheimer’ is set to outperform other recent summer releases, including ‘The Flash,’ ‘Elemental,’ and ‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.’
Interestingly, ‘Barbie’ attracted a predominantly female audience, accounting for 68 percent of viewers, while ‘Oppenheimer’ appealed more to male audiences, making up 64 percent of its viewership. Given its extended runtime and historical subject matter, Oppenheimer’s success was unexpected.
Internationally, ‘Oppenheimer’ saw strong performance, earning $98 million from 78 markets, exceeding the earlier estimate of $93.7 million. Notably, the film secured Nolan’s biggest non-superhero opening in 55 markets. With a global debut of $180.4 million against a production budget of $100 million, ‘Oppenheimer’ emerged as a formidable box-office contender.
This weekend’s one-two punch of ‘Barbie’ and ‘Oppenheimer’ created a phenomenon dubbed “Barbenheimer,” providing a much-needed boost to the film industry and box office, which was still recovering from the impact of the pandemic. This unprecedented weekend became the first in history where one movie surpassed $100 million while another grossed over $50 million.
Revenue-wise, this blockbuster weekend ranks as the fourth-highest of all time, a feat not seen since the success of ‘Avengers: Endgame,’ according to Comscore. Combined ticket sales approached a staggering $305 million, marking a rare and exceptional achievement. This surge in box office earnings comes as a welcome relief amid concerns about the ongoing writers and actors strike, which paralyzed Hollywood and worried theater owners about potential delays of fall and winter releases if actors could not promote their films.
Both ‘Barbie’ and ‘Oppenheimer’ earned stellar A CinemaScores from enthusiastic audiences in the U.S., with critics’ scores on Rotten Tomatoes equally impressive — 90 percent for ‘Barbie’ and 93 percent for ‘Oppenheimer.’
Cinemark, one of the country’s major theater chains, reported this weekend as their biggest summer weekend ever, attributing this success to the pull of ‘Barbie’ and ‘Oppenheimer.’
Wanda Gierhart Fearing, Cinemark’s Chief Marketing and Content Officer, expressed delight in the audience response, stating, “People love coming together to experience great storytelling in a movie theater, as proven yet again by the sheer volume of consumers who visited our locations to see Barbie and Oppenheimer during opening weekend. It appears Barbie is everything, and Christopher Nolan fans turned out in droves to see his newest masterpiece in the larger-than-life theatrical format he intended. Congratulations to our studio partners and the entire creative community for delivering films that generate these record-breaking results.”
The exceptional performance of “Barbenheimer” has posed a challenge for Tom Cruise’s latest installment, ‘Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One.’ The film faced a steep 64 percent drop in its second weekend, grossing $19.5 million and bringing its domestic total to $118.8 million. However, it fared better overseas, earning an additional $55 million from 72 markets, bringing its foreign total to $252.1 million and its global tally to $370.9 million.
Paramount’s seventh ‘Mission: Impossible’ film encountered competition as it lost Imax screens to ‘Oppenheimer,’ in addition to ceding premium large format screens to either ‘Oppenheimer’ or ‘Barbie.’ The upcharge for Imax and premium extensive format screenings significantly affects the film’s box office revenue.
Meanwhile, Angel Studios’ faith-based political thriller ‘Sound of Freedom’ had another robust weekend, potentially surpassing ‘Dead Reckoning’ with an estimated $20.1 million, reaching a cumulative total of $123.4 million in the U.S. However, Monday’s actual figures will confirm the official ranking.
‘Sound of Freedom’ stars Jim Caviezel from ‘The Passion of the Christ’ as real-life figure Tim Ballard, a former Department of Homeland Security agent on a mission to bring child traffickers to justice. Despite discussions on QAnon message boards, Angel Studios clarified that ‘Sound of Freedom’ is not a QAnon movie. Although Caviezel had spoken at a QAnon convention in Las Vegas in late 2021, the film focuses on telling a compelling and vital story.
The summer box office has witnessed a momentous weekend with the unstoppable duo of ‘Barbie’ and ‘Oppenheimer,’ providing a much-needed boost to the industry, marking a historical milestone, and thrilling audiences worldwide.
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