Hollywood may be on pause as the WGA and SAG strikes wage on, but the box office is booming. This weekend marked the long-awaited opening of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, aka Barbenheimer — the cinematic event of the year.
The films’ shared release date was originally announced at CinemaCon last year, to the delight of movie fans everywhere. Seemingly polar opposite films — one a three-hour biopic about the man who invented the atomic bomb, the other a candy-coloured comedy about the world’s most famous doll — the internet soon decided that the two would make a perfect double feature, and thus, Barbenheimer was born.
While Barbenheimer may have begun as a joke, the double feature has boomed into serious box office numbers, though. In fact, Barbie and Oppenheimer‘s opening weekend has marked one of the biggest box office weekends ever.
Related: “An Extraordinary Blessing”: Greta Gerwig on the ‘Barbie’ Movie Hype
Related: Will Christopher Nolan Hit Another Home Run? What We Know About ‘Oppenheimer’
The Global Box Office
Proving themselves to be a box office power duo, Barbenheimer managed to pull in around USD$511 million all up. In the US, it marked the fourth biggest box office weekend of all time — and the only one that didn’t include an Avengers or Star Wars film. Of course, Barbie and Oppenheimer weren’t the only films screening over the weekend, but the two films accounted for 52% of total ticket sales.
As for which one came out on top? Barbie pulled in around USD$155 million in the US domestic market, and USD$182 million internationally for a global total of $337 million worldwide debut, while Oppenheimer made roughly USD$80.5 million in the US, and USD$93.7 million internationally, marking a global total of USD$174 million.
Records Broken
Deadline published an exhaustive list of the many, many records that Barbie and Oppenheimer have broken thus far. Some of the highlights include:
- Barbie is the largest opening weekend in history for a female director
- Oppenheimer is the biggest global opening for a biopic
- Barbie is the largest opening weekend for a film based on a toy
- Oppenheimer is the biggest Imax opening for a Christopher Nolan movie
Read the full list of records here.
Barbie and Oppenheimer are in HOYTS cinemas now. Buy tickets here.