Box office: ‘Barbenheimer’ launches biggest weekend in years with $244.4 million between ‘Barbie’ and ‘Oppenheimer’
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It hasn’t happened in quite some time — not even when “Spider-Man: No Way Home” opened with $260 million in December 2021 — but “Barbenheimer” helped drive this week’s Top 10 over $300 million with $244.4 million between them. Read on for the weekend box office report. This item was updated on July 24.
The lead-up to the weekend’s highly competitive double feature proved to be a boon for both movies as Greta Gerwig‘s “Barbie,” starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, and Christopher Nolan‘s “Oppenheimer,” led by Cillian Murphy, both over-performed, based on tracking data from the past few weeks. Going into the weekend, both films received stellar reviews, with “Oppenheimer” slightly ahead with 94% on Rotten Tomatoes vs. the 90% RT score for “Barbie.”
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Warner Bros. opened “Barbie” in 4,243 theaters on Friday after previews on Thursday in roughly 3,400 theaters, which brought in $22.3 million, the best number for previews this year, surpassing the $17.5 million made in previews by “Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3.” It ended up with $70.5 million on Friday, easily the best single day for any film this year, even surpassing the $56 million for “The Super Mario Bros. Movie.” It’s the third-best daily showing during the pandemic, after “Spider-Man: No Way Home” and “Doctor Strange into the Multiverse of Madness.”
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Gerwig’s third film as a director ultimately ended up with an estimated $155 million for the weekend, the biggest opening for the year – ahead of “Super Mario Bros'” $146 million opening – and more than many tentpole movies have made after weeks in theaters. You can read more about those sorry souls below. (Update: The actual weekend box office for “Barbie” has been reported as $162 million, well above the weekend estimates, so records have definitely been broken and reset.)
“Barbie” received an “A” CinemaScore with women under 25 (making up 26% of audiences on Friday) giving the movie an “A+” compared to men, who gave it an “A-.” Gerwig now holds the honor of being the woman director with the biggest domestic opening of all time, surpassing “Captain Marvel” in 2019.
Meanwhile, Nolan’s equally star-studded biopic, which co-starred Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon, Emily Blunt and Florence Pugh, made $10.5 million in its own Thursday previews, leading to a Friday take of $33 million. It generally kept pace with “Barbie” in terms of making half as much, leading up to an estimated first weekend of $80.5 million. That is Nolan’s biggest opening for a non-Batman flick, surpassing “John Wick Chapter 4” for the biggest R-rated opening this year. (Update: Universal has reported an actual weekend box office for “Oppenheimer” as $82.4 million, still well ahead of any records it may have been breaking.)
Nolan’s new movie also received an “A” CinemaScore, surprising since many critics felt it wouldn’t connect with audiences due to its running time and slower pace. “Oppenheimer” added another $93.7 million overseas* in 78 markets, for a global opening of $174.2 million. $35 million of that amount came from IMAX screens worldwide, a grand start for a movie that holds a monopoly on IMAX and 70mm screens for the next few weeks. (*now updated to $98 million)
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The two movies made $231 million between them, showing that two hugely anticipated films can both do well and proving there are more than enough theaters and screens to handle two such huge openings. If those numbers hold, this will be the first time in box office history where two entries opened with more than $80 million on the same weekend. (Oddly, a number of the summer tentpoles, all franchise sequels, only opened in the $60 million region and failed to deliver.)
Even so, other movies were still able to bring in business this weekend.
“Sound of Freedom” had been ahead of “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” just about every day this past week, and sure enough, it took third place this weekend with an estimated $20.1 million in 3,285 theaters, down 26% from last weekend. Even before the weekend, the biodrama crossed the $100 million mark, and it ended its third weekend with $124.8 million
“Dead Reckoning” made $19.5 million in its second weekend, down 64% after losing most of its premium screens to “Barbenheimer.” Its $118.8 million domestic gross is quite low compared to the last few installments, and we’ll have to see if it can recover once “Barbenheimer” has cooled down, if it ever does.
“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” finally pulled back ahead of “Insidioius: The Red Door” with an estimated $6.7 million to the latter’s $6.5 million estimate, taking fifth place with a 46% drop from last weekend. “Indiana Jones” has grossed $159 million, so far, so it will be the next summer tentpoles to be passed by “Barbie” sometime this coming week.
“Insidious: The Red Door” didn’t hold up as well against “Barbenheimer,” taking sixth place with a 50% drop, followed by Disney-Pixar’s “Elemental,” which finally got hit by the double feature of the century, falling to seventh place with $5.8 million, down 36%, which really isn’t so bad. “Elemental” has grossed $137.2 million (less than “Barbie”) while the “Insidious” movie is the second highest-grossing in the franchise with $71 million so far.
Searchlight’s “Theater Camp” added another $266,000 this weekend in 51 theaters to bring its domestic total to $672,000. On Friday, “Theater Camp” will expand wide into an unknown number of theater across the country.
Celine Song‘s indie drama “Past Lives,” thought to be another Oscar contender, has made $10 million so far at the box office with another $166,000 in 176 locations.
Most players had “Barbie” at #1 and “Oppenheimer” in second place for the box office prediction game, but then it gets interesting, because “Barbie’s” $155 million estimate puts it into a bracket where only 39 players picked it to make over $150 million. After that, most players had “Mission: Impossible” in third place and “Sound of Freedom” in fourth, but only NINE players had those two reversed.
Six players got a perfect score in the July 14 game, and it should come as no surprise that board leader “Mellow Drama” once again scored the most points of those six.
Friday will see the release of Disney’s “Haunted Mansion” and A24’s horror film, “Talk to Me,” so check back on Wednesday for Gold Derby’s weekend preview.
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