Nearly 1 Out of 4 of ‘Barbie’ Viewers Hadn’t Gone to the Movies Since COVID

Tony Maglio
·4 min read
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“Barbie” already generating more than $1 billion at the global box office may not even be its biggest contribution to movie theaters.

A new survey from The Quorum found that 11 percent of those who saw “Barbie” had not been to a movie theater since before the COVID-19 pandemic. Another 11 percent could not recall the last time they had been to a movie theater.

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Assuming the latter group is not made up of goldfish (“Ted Lasso” famously reminded us of their ultra-short attention span), that means 22 percent, or a bit less than one quarter, of “Barbie” ticket-buyers hadn’t stared up at the silver screen since that initial lockdown period upended all our lives and nearly ruined the theatrical-distribution business.

The Quorum’s study surveyed 1,800 Americans who went to the theater to see “Barbie” over its first three weeks of availability. The researchers asked: “How often do you see a theater in a movie?” Nearly half (46 percent) of the respondents chose “All the time.”

The next most-popular response, at 32 percent, was “Every now and then.”

“I can’t recall the last movie I saw in a theater” and “‘Barbie’ was the first film I saw in a theater since the pandemic” split the rest of the pie. See below.

Those relatively small slices are actually pretty significant.

By this evening, the domestic haul for “Barbie” should hit half-a-billion dollars. Eleven percent of $500 million is $55 million; another 11 percent makes it $110 million. Extrapolating The Quorum’s findings and repeating their math, at an average ticket price of $11, nearly 10 million Americans will have made their long-awaited return to movie theaters for the Greta Gerwig/Margot Robbie/Ryan Gosling film.

Adam Aron voice: We’re back, baby!

Sort of. The Quorum found that 40 percent of its survey-takers said the positive experience reminded them how much they enjoy going to the theater and that they now plan to go more often. Great, right? It is, although a slightly larger section — 46 percent — said the high costs of seeing a movie in a theater will probably prevent them from being regulars. (And 15 percent called their “Barbie” outing a “one-off.”)

You may never win over the 15 percenters; but the largest group in that second question sounds up for grabs. “It would take another film as exciting as ‘Barbie’ to get me to go back,” the respondents noted.

Noted. OK, so what do we have in the pipeline for them? The answer is kind of “nothing.”

The ongoing writers and actors strikes are likely to cripple the theaters — again — and soon. There are the obvious direct impacts of the work stoppage — nobody to write (and rewrite) a script, nobody to act (and do reshoots/record ADR) in the film — as well as the less obvious issues, like nobody to promote the film, which is generally the actors’ task.

With no end to the strikes in sight (the WGA and AMPTP are set to meet again today, but no one is holding their breath on an imminent deal), major releases are being pushed — sometimes on an indefinite basis.

October looks to be particularly brutal: “The Exorcist: Believer” comes out on October 13, though it’s pretty much the only wide major release in the month. Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” (October 6) is a limited release that will be on its true platform, Apple TV+, just two weeks after opening; “Five Nights at Freddy’s” (October 27) is going day-and-date on Peacock. What is this, 2021?

Thank goodness “Dune: Part Two” (November 3) hasn’t been pushed…yet. With a cast led by Florence Pugh, Timothée Chalamet, and Zendaya — and a huge budget — you can bet Warner Bros. will want its stars to be all over social media, the red carpet, and the talk-show circuit.

Darn it: theaters had just started to recover from the pandemic blocking the pipeline. Hey, maybe another Mattel movie will bring back patrons in another three years; the timing seems right for “Uno.”

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