Barbenheimer was a bigger box office explosion than first thought

Barbenheimer’s blast radius keeps growing. The 18-kiloton double feature did something that franchise performers Indiana Jones, Barry Allen, or Ariel Mermaid couldn’t: Got audiences excited about movies, making this weekend a record-breaking one at the cinema. Per Variety, Barbie and Oppenheimer earned more at the box office this weekend than previously reported. Barbie, which has broken several box office records this weekend, ended up with $162 million, and Oppenheimer, a three-hour historical biopic, earned $82 million. It is a rare feat in this day and age for two non-sequels to perform like this, so allow us a moment to reflect.

This weekend’s box office is currently the fourth-biggest movie weekend in history. The other three? Avengers: Endgame, Avengers: Infinity War, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Armed with nothing more than a man in a fedora and a woman in pink, Barbie, a brand that doesn’t necessarily scream “great material for a movie,” and Oppenheimer, a three-hour drama without an interlocking franchise to call its own, defied the conventional wisdom of the last decade. More than 200,000 people bought tickets to sit in the movies for six hours, which is very uncommon.

“It was a truly historic weekend and continues the positive box office momentum of 2023,” said Michael O’Leary, President & CEO of the National Association of Theatre Owners. “More importantly, it proves once again that America loves going to the
movies to see great films. People recognized that something special was happening, and they wanted to be a part of it.”

There’s a lot to be said about these numbers. For one thing, it speaks to the benefits of counter-programming, a practice Hollywood has more or less given up on recently. Moreover, the Barbenheimer effect could be a canary in the coal mine for many of the franchises running on fumes. That’s not to say superhero movies are on the way out—the success of Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 and Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse shows audiences still have a taste for masked avengers and talking trees.

However, it highlights Disney’s terrible summer. Aside from Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3, Disney has released many underperforming titles this year. On paper, Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania, The Little Mermaid, Elemental, and Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny felt like sure bets. But, for comparison, Barbie has already earned more at the domestic box office than Indiana Jones, which reportedly had a budget of $300 million. And to be clear, these movies have already made an obscene amount of money. All three cleared $300 million worldwide, so we’d be hard-pressed to call them failures, but they aren’t performing as the studio hoped. Maybe people don’t feel compelled to go to the movies when they can watch these underlit sequels and remakes at home on Disney+ a month later. This is just a hunch, but throwing a Haunted Mansion reboot at the problem probably won’t fix things.

So, what can we take away from this? Nothing really. As always, the answer is to make good movies. Except these studios can’t right now. The studios still won’t bargain with the writers and performers that made Barbie and Oppenheimer such a boon for the industry. The strike continues, and studios have considered pushing release dates on long-awaited blockbusters like Dune Part 2 and Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom.

Furthermore, for whatever reason, companies only want us to sign up for their streaming services instead of paying for movie tickets and signing up for their streaming services. Hence, it’s unlikely the Barbenheimer success will change anyone’s business plans. If there’s anything to take away, it’s that there are two blockbuster movies that will satisfy audiences in theaters right now. If we’re lucky, maybe one day, it’ll happen again.