Two movie heavyweights, Barbie and Oppenheimer, attracted record-breaking crowds for their opening weekend across the globe. The films reportedly raked in a combined $235.5m following a dry spill in Hollywood.
Greta Gerwig’s Barbie generated $155m in ticket sales, beating The Super Mario Bros Movie as the biggest opening of 2023! Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer brought in a staggering $80.5 million.
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Hundreds of thousands of moviegoers bought tickets to see both releases on the same day. A phenomenon, that social media and cinema chains are dubbing Barbenheimer.
The double release not only invigorated cinema goers, but helped cinemas enjoy the best weekend since the debut of Avengers: Endgame in April 2019.
Barbenheimer breaking records
According to media reports, Barbie has already surpassed the lifetime grosses of multiple other female-led movies. This includes Ocean’s 8 ($297.7m), Birds of Prey *which also features Margot Robbie* ($205.3m) and Little Women ($218.8m).
It is also the second-highest opening for a movie from a female filmmaker. Barbie is the largest opening weekend for a movie based on a toy, coming after Transformers: Dark of the Moon.
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Oppenheimer is Nolan’s third-highest grossing opening weekend EVER after The Dark Knight Rises and The Dark Knight. It also has the biggest opening weekend ever for a biopic, surpassing Bohemian Rhapsody ($124m).
The combined ticket sales of Barbenheimer, along with other films like Mission: Impossible 7 and Indiana Jones 5, led to the highest ever weekend at the box office.
Something of an impossible mission
Unfortunately, Ethan Hunt could not beat the Barbenheimer storm. Paramount’s Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny scraped in the fourth and fifth spots respectively.
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Dead Reckoning is the seventh installment in the Mission: Impossible franchise, and while it faces off against Barbenheimer, it has a better critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes. Mission: Impossible scored 96%, while Barbie scored a 90% and Oppenheimer scored 94%.
