“Barbenheimer” is officially here, and the battle that’s been referred to as the bomb versus bombshell is about to ignite the box office.
Greta Gerwig’s cotton candy-colored “Barbie,” starring Margot Robbie as the plastic, fantastic doll, is expected to generate a huge $95 million to $110 million from 4,200 North American theaters over the weekend. Given the omnipresence of “Barbie” (the marketing is practically inescapable, with enough memes and marketing tie-ins to last a lifetime), initial estimates are all over the place. Warner Bros. is projecting a more conservative $75 million to start, while rivals and exhibitors believe the PG-13 movie could make as much as $140 million between Friday and Sunday.
In any case, “Barbie” will claim the top spot over Christopher Nolan‘s atomic bomb drama “Oppenheimer,” which is aiming to collect a solid $50 million from 3,600 cinemas through Sunday. Universal is backing the R-rated historical biopic, which cost $100 million.
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“Oppenheimer” runs at three hours (“Barbie” clocks in at just under two), which may limit the screenings per day. However, Nolan’s epic will benefit from premium large format screens like Imax, which is dedicating its entire footprint to his film for three weeks.
Together, the seemingly different blockbusters with twin release dates are fueling the phenomenon known as “Barbenheimer.” AMC Theatres, the nation’s biggest cinema chain, reported that 40,000 people have already purchased tickets for double features of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” on the same day — up 20,000 from last week.
The National Association of Theatre Owners, the industry’s trade organization, is projecting that more than 200,000 moviegoers will attend same-day viewings of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” at theaters across North America. And that’s “in addition to the millions of worldwide moviegoers who are planning to see both films on different days this weekend,” says Michael O’Leary, president and CEO of NATO.
The $145 million-budgeted “Barbie” stars too many A-listers to name, but we’ll give it a shot: Ryan Gosling, Issa Rae, Dua Lipa, Simu Liu, Helen Mirren, John Cena and Will Ferrell round out the cast of the fantasy comedy, which follows Barbie and Ken as they leave the comfort and familiarity of Barbie-Land on a quest for self-discovery in the real world.
“Oppenheimer,” adapted by Nolan from the Pulitzer Prize-winning book “American Prometheus,” is an equally star-studded character study about theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer. Cillian Murphy plays the man who led the development of the atomic bomb, alongside an ensemble of Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh and Alden Ehrenreich.
The potent combination of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer,” as well as last weekend’s champion “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One,” is expected to fuel one of the biggest box office weekends in ages. Summer season has otherwise produced a string of underperforming options, like “The Flash,” “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” and “Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken.”
Tom Cruise’s newest “Mission” looks to add $28 million to $30 million in its second weekend of release, a decline of roughly 50% from its debut. The seventh installment in Paramount and Skydance’s globe-trotting action franchise opened to $56 million in North America and $234 million globally. It cost $291 million before marketing, so Ethan Hunt’s latest death-defying adventure needs to remain a draw throughout the summer to justify that price tag.
Elsewhere, the unlikely box office hit “Sound of Freedom” is imminently crossing the $100 million mark, which will put the film among the top 16 highest grossing of the year. The low-budget, faith-based movie about child sex trafficking has generated a remarkable $85.7 million to date. That’s thanks mostly to the religious and conservative media groups that have rallied behind the film.
Paul Dergarabedian, a senior Comscore analyst, calls “Barbenheimer” a “movie marketers dream come true.” He adds that the craze is “creating a rising tide of interest that should also boost the fortunes of ‘MI7’ and ‘Sound of Freedom’ as moviegoers flood the multiplex in search of movies to catch on the big screen.”
