That Barbie vs. Oppenheimer faceoff may not even happen [UPDATED]

[Update 12:15 pm]: Variety has since clarified Fremeaux’s remarks with the following addendum: “Thierry Fremaux later clarified that Oppenheimer is still set for a July release.”

[Original article]: If you were looking forward to catching a Barbie and Oppenheimer double feature on July 21, don’t get your hopes up. It’s starting to look like Christopher Nolan’s Big Movie about the creation of the atomic bomb is pushing its release date.

After the Cannes Film Festival confirmed its initial 2023 lineup yesterday, festival director Thierry Fremaux talked to Variety about the first batch of announcements, which includes Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City and Zone Of Interest, Jonathan Glazer’s follow-up to Under The Skin. While more titles are yet to be announced, Oppenheimer won’t be one of them.

“I would have loved [that] but it’s being released at the end of the year as part of their awards strategy,” Fremaux says. “My two regrets this year are Oppenheimer and Barbie, but it won’t be ready either by May.”

Elsewhere in the conversation, the festival chief expounds on the challenges of screening certain films that won’t be premiering in theaters until later in the year.

“It’s not just the independent cinema, it’s the films from auteurs in general because these films always have the potential of campaigning for the Oscars,” he says. “So there are some filmmakers who are discovered at Cannes and naturally when they become much better known they tend to have their movies released in the fall. I was talking about Steve McQueen for instance who was at Cannes with Hunger and then had his movies released in the fall. At the same time, we never stopped luring Quentin Tarantino and the Coen brothers who come to Cannes and have their movies launched in theaters in the fall. But coming to Cannes is expensive and that means two campaigns, in May and in October.”

Of course, while a year-end release is traditional for awards hopefuls, it’s not necessarily a requirement. Considering that Everything Everywhere All At Once kept enough momentum going from an April release to win seven Oscars this year, we can only hope that Ryan Gosling scores a little gold Ken.

Whenever Oppenheimer does come out, Cillian Murphy stars as the eponymous head of the Manhattan Project. The film also features Robert Downey Jr., Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Benny Safdie, Florence Pugh, Michael Angarano, Rami Malek, Josh Hartnett, and Kenneth Branagh.