Barbenheimer’ Takes On All Comers- And Wins

 

‘Barbenheimer’ Takes On All Comers- And Wins

Pretty in Pink takes on a whole new meaning after this weekend. With Hollywood in what can be conservatively called a bit of a slump of late, stellar performances from the 2 unexpected summer event pics, Oppenheimer and Barbie, was just what the box office needed to bring in some good news. Brandon Blake, entertainment lawyer Los Angeles from Blake & Wang P.A., unveils the full performance.



                                              Brandon Blake


Barbie Beats Them All

Even the most enthusiastic predictions for Greta Gerwig’s pink-infused summer smash saw it tracking at a $90-100M opening weekend domestically, especially given its female-leaning demographics. Some went as low as $75M. They were all wrong, in a wonderful way. Barbie took home a staggering $162M domestically and is doing fantastically overseas as well.

Oppenheimer Explodes

We mentioned in a previous article that Oppenheimer should manage to take home roughly half the Barbie takings- and despite Barbie’s amazing performance, it did just that. Universal would have been happy with anything north of $40M. They got $82.4M. Despite the 3-hour run time and the less-than-buoyant subject material.

 

Together, both have powered the box office to the fourth-biggest weekend of all time.Note, that’s all time, not post-pandemic. Barbie claims the title for the top opening of 2023 from Super Mario Bros, the biggest opening for either of its stars, a film based on a toy, as well as for a female director. It’s also Warner Bros Discovery’s biggest opening outside the DC and sequel spiral. Christopher Nolan sees his biggest start outside the Dark Knight films and the third-biggest biographical opening ever in North America.

Barbenheimer

Together, they make the first three-day weekend where we’ve seen a $100M and a $50M opening, too. Part of this comes down to the now notorious ‘Barbenheimer’ effect, a curious coupling of the two films in the cultural zeitgeist simply due to their release dates and starkly contrasting subject matter. Many of these viewers will have been a double billing- and we strongly doubt either producer ever saw that coming!

 

A sizzling summer weekend was just what the summer box office needed, and while some mutter about the limited publicity we may see later in the year due to ongoing strike action, let’s just celebrate a very, very wonderful moment in the path to box office recovery for what it is.

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