‘Barbenheimer’ sweeps North American box offices in historic weekend
- Barbie and Oppenheimer, two polar opposite films debuted simultaneously in a match-up dubbed ‘Barbenheimer’
- They helped North American cinemas turn in the best weekend since Avengers: Endgame made its debut in April 2019
Warner Bros’ Barbie conquered North American box offices in its debut weekend as it raked in a stunning US$155 million, while the other half of the movie-going event of the summer, the dark biopic Oppenheimer, also scored big with US$80.5 million in revenue, industry estimates reported on Sunday.
Legions of pink-clad film-goers swarmed theatres to give Barbie the biggest opening weekend of any film this year – and the biggest ever for a female director – said industry monitor Exhibitor Relations.
The much-anticipated “Barbenheimer” cinematic weekend, during which Barbie and Universal’s Oppenheimer were both released, spurred hundreds of thousands of people to take in both flicks, organising their own double features.
The coincidental same-day release of the two starkly different but highly anticipated films – one following an iconic doll ready to paint the world pink and the other about the scientist who helped invent the atomic bomb – created a bottom-up pop-culture phenomenon that transcended the individual marketing for either.
Together, they also provided a shot in the arm for theatres hit hard by the pandemic as well as the rise of streaming services. It was the best weekend since Avengers: Endgame made its debut in April 2019.
