It was billed as the definitive box office showdown, but the summer phenomenon that was Barbie v Oppenheimer ultimately proved to be the catalyst to get the UK’s struggling cinema sector back on track.
The extraordinary success of both films, released on the same day, pushed admissions in July to more than 17.6m – the biggest month for UK cinemagoing since December 2019. And the popularity of “Barbenheimer” has continued into this month, with experts predicting 13.5m admissions for August.
Their combined takings are now more than £130m, according to the UK Cinema Association, with further screenings to come over the weekend, a bank holiday in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Directed by Greta Gerwig, Barbie has raked in more than £86m at the UK box office, making it the biggest film of 2023 so far. The first movie launched from toymaker Mattel’s newly created in-house film division, it has already overtaken Tom Cruise’s blockbuster Top Gun sequel Maverick.
Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer has taken north of £51m, with the two contrasting films combining to give Vue its best weekend since Covid.
The summer’s figures are something of a boost to UK cinemas, which have been struggling to recover from closures during the Covid lockdowns. Admissions from May to August are forecast to total about 49.6m – up 8% compared with summer 2022.
However, this is still some way short of 2019, the last full year pre-Covid, when there were 176m admissions, and the 177m in 2018, the highest since 1970. By contrast, in 2020 admission numbers fell to 44m due to the pandemic.
“For all the positivity, the sector still faces considerable challenges, including cost increases in a range of operating areas, in particular around energy and staffing,” said Phil Clapp, the chief executive of the UK Cinema Association.
“While we all hope for a positive resolution to the current disputes involving actors and scriptwriters in the US, anything which risks disrupting a supply of film content which is still not back to pre-Covid levels must be a concern.”
In July, the union representing Hollywood actors formally announced a strike, expanding the standoff between Hollywood workers and studio executives over wages, artificial intelligence technology and how to divide the profits of the digital streaming era.
The strike by the Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (Sag-Aftra) is the first time in 63 years that Hollywood writers and actors are striking simultaneously.
Clapp said: “For all of the rhetoric around audiences having left the cinemagoing experience, box office in 2022 was proportionate to that pre-Covid, when the number of major film titles released is considered.
“While it is a fool’s errand to predict end of year results this far out, we’ve seen nothing to suggest that that will not also hold true for this year.”
Box office takings from the beginning of May until mid-August this year stood at £396.4m, up 12% on the same period in 2022 and only a few percentage points down on the same time in 2019. This could reflect the significant proportion of premium tickets, such as Imax, bought for Oppenheimer, Clapp said.
It seems there has been no letup in consumers continuing to prioritise spending income on entertainment. There was a 15.8% year-on-year rise in spending in the sector in July, according to Barclays’ consumer spending report.
Despite the cost of living crisis, 11% of people cut back on other expenses to afford tickets for concerts and cinema trips, while 10% said they treated themselves to a concert or film ticket in July even though they could not really afford it, the report said.
It comes as parliament launched an inquiry into British film and high-end TV, examining issues around skills and retention as well as challenges posed from the rise of AI.
MPs on the culture, media and sport committee will investigate what needs to be done to maintain and enhance the UK as a global destination for production and how the independent film sector can best be supported.
The committee will also examine challenges for British cinemas, following the recent Cineworld restructure and the collapse of the Empire chain.
