While Barbie is getting a lot, very justifiable, attention for its incredible box office run that has now topped $1 billion, the other half of “Barbenheimer” has certainly been no slouch when it comes to its own theatrical success. Oppenheimer has made more than $555 million worldwide, a lot of that thanks to more expensive IMAX tickets. The movie has apparently been so successful that the 70mm IMAX run is now being extended. What would Tom Cruise think?
IMAX and other large format screens have become very important to major film releases because tickets are more expensive, yet there are far fewer screens available. This can make booking those screens a battle between studios. Oppenheimer was originally given a three-week exclusive window at IMAX screens, which reportedly irked Tom Cruise, since Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One, due to coming out earlier, had a much smaller window in the theaters.
Dead Reckoning is just short of grossing $500 million at the global box office, which puts it behind Oppenheimer despite it being out a few days longer. While it's impossible to know how that number might have been different if Mission: Impossible had longer control over IMAX screens, one assumes that at least some fans would have paid the ticket price for IMAX in the second weekend and beyond, boosting the film's total take at least a little.
However, it seems that Oppenheimer at IMAX has proved so popular that Variety reports that the 19 theaters in the U.S. that can screen the film in 70mm IMAX are going to continue to screen Oppenheimer through the end of August, rather than stopping on August 17 as had been the previous plan.
Even among IMAX formats, there are multiple ways to watch Oppenheimer, but the 70mm IMAX print has been dubbed the “best possible experience” by Christopher Nolan himself, and thus many movie fans have made a point to see the film in that format, even though it can mean traveling significant distances for some since there are only 30 theaters in the world capable of showing the movie that way.
As somebody who was lucky enough to view Oppenheimer in 70mm IMAX, I can’t necessarily argue. It is an impressive experience to see. It's also an impressive experience to simply view the massive film print, which was so big new trays needed to be fabricated to hold the film that was being fed into the projector.
It certainly helps, and was probably part of Universal’s plan when setting release dates, that there simply isn’t another major theatrical release looking to use IMAX screens for another few weeks. The next movie on the 2023 movie release schedule that will have any significant IMAX presence is WB’s Blue Beetle, which doesn’t hit theaters until August 18. At this point, most digital IMAX theaters will likely switch over to showing that, but the 70mm theaters will continue to show Oppenheimer.
