Demographics Show Why ‘Barbenheimer’ Was Meant to Be | Charts
Was this movie moment meant to be? As late as April, there were reports that Universal would blink and delay “Oppenheimer” rather than have it go head to head against Warner Bros. summer event “Barbie” on Friday. But the studios held firm, the internet embraced “Barbenheimer” memes and fans showed up for both movies — many on double tickets.
What might have been a box office faceoff turned into a cinematic lovefest for two very different movies. A more nuanced look at the strengths of each movie, drawing on Parrot Analytics‘ data, which takes into account consumer research, streaming, downloads and social media, among other engagement, shows why these two movies were made to coexist, and possibly draw wider audiences by opening on the same weekend than either might have alone.
The cast of a movie is one of the most important factors that energizes audiences to go and see it. An analysis of demand for the leads of each film showed “Barbie” stars shining brighter with audiences than the cast of “Oppenheimer.”
We examined the most in-demand actors in each movie’s cast to get a read on how much they excited audiences. While the average demand for the cast of “Barbie” has consistently led “Oppenheimer” in the months leading up to their premieres, the demand for the talent in both casts has more than tripled in the last three months.
A complicating factor due to the recent strikes is that actors aren’t allowed to promote their movies. The stars of “Barbie” hit the red carpet ahead of the strike, while the cast of “Oppenheimer” walked out of its London premiere. We examined demand through July 16, two days after the strike began, however, so the effect of the guild’s prohibition would have been minimal.
Even though “Barbie” has more star power behind it than “Oppenheimer,” the way audience attention is distributed across these casts is different. “Barbie” leans heavily on costars Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling.
Robbie as Barbie had by far the highest global demand into opening weekend. From June 17-July 16, 2023, Robbie was 39.9 times more in demand than the average talent worldwide. This places her into our Exceptional demand bucket, the top 0.04% of all talent across all professions during this time.
Prior to “Oppenheimer,” Cillian Murphy’s highest profile role was as Thomas Shelby in “Peaky Blinders” on the BCC and Netflix. In the 30 days after that show’s series finale debuted on Netflix in 2022, Murphy’s global demand was 6.76 times the average. During the lead-up to his “Oppenheimer” debut, Cillian Murphy’s demand rose to 18.8 times the average, a 178% increase.
The real “Barbenheimer” effect may come down to audience demographics. The audiences are almost mirror images of one another when it comes to gender and age. The “Barbie” audience is 66.2% female and significantly younger, with 74.6% under the age of 29, while the “Oppenheimer” audience is 70.7% male and 52.9% over 30.
The nearly inverse demographics are a good indicator that “Oppenheimer” and “Barbie” were never going to cannibalize each others’ audiences. Far from pitting the two movies against each other, the placement appears to have created a cultural event. It may well have driven some to see a film they might not normally have watched.
Christofer Hamilton is a senior insights analyst at Parrot Analytics, a WrapPRO partner. For more from Parrot Analytics, visit the Data and Analysis Hub.
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