Wake up babe, it’s Barbenheimer weekend!
Barbenheimer is a phenomenon popularised by the internet ahead of the release of two blockbuster films that have been widely regarded as dissimilar in style and content. Barbie and Oppenheimer hit the box office on July 21st, Friday. The internet has been highly anticipating the release of these two movies for a long time now. In preparation for their release, there has been a flood of memes, outfits and game plans. Yes, game plans! Whether it’s Oppenheimer in the AM, break for brunch and cocktails, followed by dinner, drinks and maybe the club or Barbie in the AM, a heavy brunch, then go for Oppenheimer and end the day by discussing the movie at a bar, the hype is real.
For the first time in the US box office history, 300+ million has been earned in a single weekend (all films combined), without help from sequels/StarWars/Comic Book Debut. If you include those, then its the 4th time in history! @jonathanmb32 posted a thread on Twitter of “every major and stupidly minor crazy thing that Barbenheimer did at the box office this weekend.” Here’s the link.
What’s the hype? Why is it such a big deal?
Oppenheimer, which stars Cillian Murphy as the lead, tells the story of the man who is credited for the innovation of the atomic bomb, Robert J. Oppenheimer. Other than the intriguing subject of the movie, it has been directed by the one and only Christopher Nolan. The USP of the movie is the fact that they shot every scene, including the Trinity test (the first-ever detonation of a nuclear weapon), without VFX.
Barbie has always been a fantasy world- a doll who looks perfect, lives in a perfect world with millions of friends by her side. The hype for Barbie has been driven by nostalgia, a star-studded cast and anticipation.
But the advertising strategy that worked best for both the movies was memes. And the funniest part is, no one anticipated it. Barbie and Oppenheimer’s polar opposite nature has taken a life of its own. Barbenheimer has created its own little world that no marketing team on Earth could build.
Counterprogramming
Counterprogramming is when you release two very different movies on the same date to attract wider audiences. Theatres usually screen two different kind of movies so that parents can enjoy some psycho murder film while their kids are watching a cartoon film or rom-com. There have been a few double podiums in Hollywood in the past:
Exactly 15 years ago, on the same weekend in July, the Dark Knight and Mamma Mia, also known as the Dark Mamma, opened together. The best part being, Christopher Nolan directed the Dark Night. Barbenheimer isn’t Nolan’s first double! Both movies generated a buzz, however the Dark Night performed better on opening weekend. Christian Bale and Heath Ledger raked in $158 million, while the ABBA musical led by Meryl Streep, brought in $27.7 million.
Another odd combination is Mad Max: Fury Road and Pitch Perfect 2 hitting theatres on the same day in May, 2015. the a cappella singing group led by Anna Kendrick also led the box office collections for the weekend with $69.2 million. The post-apocalyptic hellscape was slightly behind with $45.4 million.
There’s just something special about Barbenheimer. Social media didn’t have the kind of impression and influence in 2015 as it does now. As deciphered earlier, the best publicity both the movies got was unpaid but of utmost importance. The social media influence responsible for the unpredictable excitement for this duo wasn’t around at the time of Dark Mamma or Mad Max and Pitch Perfect.
The dual feature is expected to collectively boost box office collections around the world. The two movies are like rays of sunshine for movie theaters who have had a hard time bouncing back to pre-pandemic levels. People are just much more comfortable with OTT. Besides, the recent attempts to drive ticket sales with movies like Mission Impossible and Indiana Jones have been unsuccessful. Mission Impossible managed to bring in just over $56 million in ticket sales (source: axios). Bollywood movies haven’t been able to attract a lot of revenue either.
Theatres desperately need this win
When Barbie said, “she’s not dead, she’s just having an existential crisis.” she could also have been referring to movie theatres.
AMC peaked with its quarterly revenue at $1.5 billion in June 2019. Things have been pretty much downhill since then. 2020 bought with it a pandemic that drastically reduced ticket sales. It took a while for the restrictions to ease and incentivise people to leave the comfort of OTT and experience movies in theatres. While theatres were somewhat successful, their numbers have sort of remained stagnant at just below $1 billion quarterly since September 2022 (source: qz).
In North America, 40,000 AMC Theatre loyalty programme members have purchased tickets to see Barbie and Oppenheimer on the same day and the National Association of Theatre owners project that more than 200,000 moviegoers will attend same-day viewings of the two films. In India, PVR Inox’s CEO Gautum Dutta said that combined advance sales for both movies for Friday to Sunday was 900,000 tickets, which is the highest for any film outside the Marvel or Avatar universe. He also noted that the combined revenue from Barbenheimer is likely to comprise a notable portion of the current quarter (source: ET).
BookMyShow said this week, 8% of those who bought tickets for Oppenheimer, also booked tickets to watch Barbie, mostly on the same day. They sold more than 354,000 tickets for the two films by July 15th itself.
Striking hard
These movies were expected to push up the share prices of movie stocks. The ticket sales and the food and beverage spending that accompany it, provides a positive outlook for the next quarter. However, the strike by writers and actors is threatening to take the shine off what is expected to be one of the busiest weekends for cinemas post-pandemic.
The plus points awarded to theatre stocks for the stellar Barbenheimer opening weekend will be cancelled out with the negative impact the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes can potentially have.
For the first time in 60 years, writers and actors in Hollywood are on strike at the same time. 60 years ago, it was to request for revenue for films that aired on TV. Today, it’s for an increase in their base pay along with a larger share of the earnings from shows that are released on OTT. Additionally, they are also seeking safety that AI will not replace their jobs. The Writers Guild of America has been on strike since May. Whereas the Screen Actors Guild announced a walkout last week after failing to reach a new labour agreement. This has driven most of the ongoing productions to a halt. It has also resulted in actors and writers skipping world premieres and refusal to promote their movies and TV shows.
The cast of Barbie and Oppenheimer have both officially joined the strike. The cast of Oppenheimer walked out of the premiere in London and the co-writer of Barbie, Noah Baumbach refrained from attending the world premiere in Los Angeles.
This is going to be another blow to the theatre industry which is still on the path to recovery from the pandemic.
Anyway, i’m on my way in a pink outfit to see what all the hype is about 😀
The Echo-nomist 
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