Greta Gerwig’s hot pink fantasia “Barbie” and Christopher Nolan’s intricately bleak historical drama “Oppenheimer” are both putting up box office openings to remember. In a summer movie season that has largely failed to keep spirits up, two bona fide blockbusters are showing that everyone can be a winner.
But the more winning winner between the two — the number one movie in North America — is Warner Bros. Discovery’s “Barbie.” After scoring $22.2 million on Thursday, the highest preview ticket sales of the year, the big screen bonanza about Mattel’s ubiquitous doll kept the superlatives going on Friday, with rivals estimating another $48.2 million from 4,243 theaters. That’s a $70.5 million total — the biggest opening day of the year, blasting past the $51.8 million earned by “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” in June. Numbers from Warner Bros. still aren’t in, but it’s safe to say the 2023 record has been shattered.
The pink wave may not stop there, as “Barbie” now looks to score the biggest three-day debut of 2023. In the crosshairs is another branding flex — “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” which landed $146.3 million in three days in April (as a caveat, the film opened with Tuesday previews and also played through the Easter holiday, drawing $224 million through that stretch). That animated feature currently stands as the highest-grossing release of the year, with $573 million domestically and $1.34 billion worldwide.
Gerwig’s “Barbie” also has a shot at scoring the biggest opening weekend ever for a feature with a female director. “Captain Marvel,” co-helmed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, earned $153 million in its 2019 opening. The record for a feature solely directed by a woman is currently held by Patty Jenkins’ “Wonder Woman” at $103 million, which “Barbie” will easily surpass.
All of this is to say, “Barbie” has gone boom. The film was a gambit by Mattel to enter the filmmaking space, costing $145 million to produce, not to mention more spending for a ubiquitous marketing campaign that went down to bus stop benches being painted pink and a Dreamhouse in Malibu. Reviews are glowing with a 90% approval rating from top critics on aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes and audiences are also ecstatic, as indicated by the enthusiastic “A” Cinema Score grade determined by surveying the first round of moviegoers. This weekend is proving to be an eruption, but the summer is far from over for “Barbie.”
Starring Margot Robbie as Barbie and Ryan Gosling as Ken, the comedy follows the iconic doll as she travels from the fantastical Barbieland to the real world — which has some problems! The deep bench of ensemble talent includes Issa Rae, America Ferrera, Kate McKinnon, Michael Cera, Simu Liu, Helen Mirren, Will Ferrell and many more.
The penultimate weekend of July had become Christopher Nolan territory over the past few years, as the renowned filmmaker opened two of his last four features (“The Dark Knight Rises,” “Dunkirk”) in that slot. (“Tenet” was also originally slated for it, but faced release delays due to the COVID pandemic.) Months after Nolan exited Warner Bros. and voiced blistering frustrations about the then-current leadership’s lack of commitment to exclusive theatrical releases, Warner Bros. followed up — arguably retaliated — by dating “Barbie” for the same weekend as Nolan’s “Oppenheimer,” which the director had brought to Universal.
What once seemed like a contentious collision course now seems to have proven nothing but fruitful. “Barbie” may be winning the weekend, but “Oppenheimer” is still impressing. Playing in 3,610 locations, the sweeping biopic earned $33 million on its opening day, which includes $10.5 million in Thursday previews.
“Oppenheimer” is now looking to rank among the biggest opening weekends ever for an R-rated release. At the top of that list are a swath of franchise films, like “Deadpool” and its sequel, “It” and its sequel, plus the “Batman” spinoff “Joker” (which has already shot its own sequel). The film is currently projecting $77 million through Sunday, which would put it behind only “The Passion of the Christ” ($83 million) among the highest openings ever for an original R-rated film — and the titular role of “Passion” has a bit more of a built-in fanbase than J. Robert Oppenheimer, to say the least.
The Nolan feature is also strongly benefitting from its showtimes in Imax auditoriums and other premium formats, which come with increased ticket prices. The filmmaker has a longstanding relationship with Imax, shooting large fractions of his features with the company’s heavy-duty cameras. (Also of note, the performance of “Barbie” is all the more impressive because it isn’t playing Imax auditoriums.) “Oppenheimer” is shaping up to be the third-biggest opening of Nolan’s career, behind “The Dark Knight” and “The Dark Knight Rises.”
On top of that, Nolan features tend to stick around in theaters. “Interstellar” and “Dunkirk” nearly quadrupled their opening weekend numbers in their final domestic earnings. Even “Tenet” legged out to $58.5 million after its wide release debut of $9 million — in a time before a widely distributed COVID vaccine no less. “Oppenheimer” has drawn some of the strongest reviews of Nolan’s career (a 96% approval rating from top critics on Rotten Tomatoes), but — even more encouraging — audiences seem to have truly taken to the despairing three-hour epic, as inferred by the sterling “A” grade through Cinema Score. With strong buzz and already some good fortunes for awards season, “Oppenheimer” has the right stuff to keep drawing audiences in.
The film follows the life of physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, played by Cillian Murphy, who was tapped by the U.S. military to spearhead the construction of the first atomic bomb. Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Florence Pugh, Casey Affleck, Josh Hartnett, Benny Safdie, Kenneth Branagh, Rami Malek and many others also star.
More to come…
