After a first half of 2023 that featured a few ups and a disturbing number of downs at the box office, there has been a great deal of anticipation building for what transpired this weekend. Two major studios put out contrasting tentpole films on the same Friday, and instead of inspiring rivalry or competition, buzz for Greta Gerwig's Barbie and Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer morphed into a blissful celebration of cinema known as Barbenheimer. And this excitement has not fizzled out as simple internet hype a la David R. Ellis' notorious Snakes On A Plane. Instead, the big screen phenomena is very real.
Check out the full Top 10 for this past weekend below, and join me after for analysis.
Barbie Sets The World Afire With A Pink Glow, Making Over $330 Million Worldwide
When box office estimates were reported last week, they were quite conservative. Deadline published predictions that Barbie and Oppenheimer together would bring in around $260 million worldwide, and Variety said that the former "could make as much as $140 million" in its first three days. These prognostications ended up being way off in the best way.
After bringing in $70.5 million on Thursday and Friday alone, the pink-splashed Margot Robbie film quickly dismissed any limited expectations once audiences first got their opportunity to see it, and it's finishing the full weekend strongly. The $155 million that the movie has made over the last three days now ranks as the biggest domestic opening weekend of the year, having surpassed the total made by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic's The Super Mario Bros. Movie in its first Friday-to-Sunday back in April.
According to The Numbers, Barbie is doing equally well overseas, with early estimates saying that $182 million has poured in from outside the United States and Canada. This brings its global total to $337 million thus far, which is already enough for the movie to rank as the 14th biggest film of the year. It's only about $19.6 million away from matching the ticket sales of Peter Sohn's Elemental, and about $33.9 million away from catching up with Christopher McQuarrie's Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 1 (which had a week-and-a-half jump start).
What's particularly exciting about this remarkable start to Barbie's box office run is the fact that it may prove to be a powerhouse for weeks to come. Many blockbusters have suffered serious weekend-to-weekend drops thus far this year, but there's no reason to believe that Greta Gerwig's hit movie will suffer that same fate. There is competition ahead, but the hype and the hot start makes the movie seem invincible.
Circumstances would be different if Barbie was the center of hype for months and only delivered mediocre results, but that's not the story here when you look at the reception that the big screen release has earned. The 4.5 star Barbie review from CinemaBlend's Nick Venable quite literally matches the tenor of critical response at large for the film, which presently has a 90 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes. That score is precisely matched by the audience rating, and CinemaScore surveys have delivered an "A" grade. These are happy movie-goers, and it's predictable that a fair fraction of those happy people will want to experience it again in the coming week/next weekend.
Oppenheimer Has The Third Biggest Domestic Opening Weekend Of Christopher Nolan's Career
But this is where the magic of Barbenheimer kicks in.
Traditionally, the counterprogramming-minded simultaneous release of Barbie and Oppenheimer would see the four-quadrant, brand-based blockbuster dominate the box office and leave the dramatic, three-hour biopic to only attract "mature" audiences... but that's not at all what has happened. The clout of Christopher Nolan and the promise of an IMAX spectacle has let both films become massive hits.
Clearly we're not looking at a neck-and-neck race for #1 here, as Barbie has earned nearly double what Oppenheimer brought in this past weekend, but that's where context comes in. Despite it only being enough for second place, the estimated $80.5 million that the film has brought in over the last three days means that it has had the seventh biggest domestic opening weekend of the year – the movie having made more in its first three days than a number of other notable 2023 #1s, including Chad Stahelski's John Wick: Chapter 4 ($73.8 million), Louis Leterrier's Fast X ($67 million) and Steven Caple Jr's Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts ($61 million).
While the film wasn't able to quote make Dark Knight ($158.4 million) or Dark Knight Rises ($160.9 million), Oppenheimer now ranks as the third most successful release of a Christopher Nolan in the United States and Canada, ahead of Inception ($62.8 million), Dunkirk ($50.5 million), Batman Begins ($48.7 million) and Interstellar ($47.5 million). Barbie didn't slow it down at all, and because of the double feature bookings, one could possibly make the argument that the Greta Gerwig hit boosted Nolan's new feature.
Globally speaking, Oppenheimer and Barbie are again in similar boats, as money from foreign markets is matching what the film is doing domestically. The film has made $174.2 million so far worldwide, which is actually enough for it to already rank as the twenty-second biggest theatrical release of the year. And with matching 94 percent Critics and Audiences scores on Rotten Tomatoes and its own "A" grade from CinemaScore, it has the heat to remain at least in the Top 5 if not the Top 2 for the remainder of July.
Needless to say, next weekend should provide even more box office excitement, as we will not only be tracking the second weekends for both Barbie and Oppenheimer, but also tracking the spooky arrivals of Justin Simien's The Haunted Mansion, based on the Disneyland/Disneyworld attraction of the same name, and Danny and Michael Philippou's buzzy horror debut Talk To Me. Be sure to head back here to CinemaBlend next Sunday to see the full Top 10, and check out our 2023 Movie Release Schedule to discover all of the titles hitting the big screen in the remaining months of the year.
