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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Sian Cain and Oliver Holmes

Barbenheimer backlash: Warner Bros apologises after its Japan arm complains

Margot Robbie in Barbie and Cillian Murphy in Oppenheimer.
Margot Robbie in Barbie and Cillian Murphy in Oppenheimer. The combination of the two very different films as ‘Barbenheimer’ has angered some in Japan. Photograph: AP

Warner Bros global headquarters has apologised after its Japan office publicly complained that the US-based company was engaging with the “Barbenheimer” movement, which promotes a double bill of the apocalyptic Oppenheimer film and the lighthearted Barbie blockbuster.

There is a growing backlash in Japan against the conflation of Greta Gerwig’s playfully marketed movie with Oppenheimer, a biopic of the scientist behind the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

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