Barbie set to clobber Oppenheimer at box office
Not content with conquering the toy box, Barbie has her sights set on box office domination.
Not content with conquering the toy box, Barbie has her sights set on box office domination.
Box office analysts are projecting that the Greta Gerwig film, which cost $US145m ($214m) to make (not including marketing costs), is looking at a global haul of $243m – with around 60 per cent coming in from the North American box office and up to $95m from 69 international markets (excluding Vietnam, where the film is banned).
Barbie is expected to clobber Christopher Nolan’s biopic Oppenheimer, which is tracking to bring in grand total of about $147m globally.
“Barbie is a fun film, one for the masses,” says Roshan Georgas, the marketing and events manager at Five Stars cinema, speaking to the Australian. She adds that Oppenheimer, although acclaimed, is likely to appeal to a more niche audience.
The cinema has been forced to add more sessions for Barbie because of the “unprecedented demand,” the likes of which Georgas hasn’t seen since the release of Top Gun: Maverick, the breakout film post-pandemic lockdowns.
“Barbie is going to top it (Top Gun: Maverick),” she says.
If projections hold true, Barbie will be the fifth biggest release this year, behind The Super Mario Bros Movie, which grossed $215m in its opening weekend, Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse ($177.9m), Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 ($174.8m) and Disney’s The Little Mermaid ($174.2m).
It is looking likely that Gerwig will break a record for the highest-opening film in the US made by a female director, currently held by Patty Jenkins for Wonder Woman, which opened with $151m.
There are a few moving parts to this box office stand-off. In the US, Barbie will show on around 4200 screens, 600 more than Oppenheimer’s 3600. Barbie has a run time of just under two hours, while Oppenheimer pushes three, limiting the number of screenings that theatres can jam into one weekend.
Though technically, Barbie and Oppenheimer are competitors, the internet has embraced them as unlikely allies. Some moviegoers are planning to see both on the same day, in a double feature dubbed “Barbenheimer”.
The US National Association of Theatre Owners is saying more than 200,000 fans will attend same-day viewings of the film.
Alex Moir, head of marketing at Australia’s Palace Theatres, tells The Australian that the cinema has “a strong indication that people are seeing both films on the same day”.
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