The social media-fuelled fusion of Gerwig’s Barbie and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer as 'Barbenheimer' brought moviegoers back to the theatres at the weekend in record numbers, with many seeing both films as a double feature.
Greta Gerwig makes history as Barbie has biggest opening weekend for film directed by a woman. Indeed, it surpassed The Super Mario Bros Movie and every Marvel film released this year to become the biggest opening of the year. This is the comeback weekend Hollywood has been dreaming of since the pandemic. It's also, of course, very good news for movie theatres.
Barbie made $377m while Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer took home $174m, making ‘Barbenheimer’ biggest box office weekend of 2023 so far.
It’s also the first time that one movie opened to more than $100m and another movie opened to more than $80m in the same weekend. When all is settled, it will probably turn out to be the fourth-biggest box office weekend of all time with more than $300m industrywide.
Women drove the historic Barbie opening, making up 65% of the audience, according to PostTrak, and 40% of ticket buyers were under the age of 25. By comparison, Oppenheimer audiences were 62% male and 63% were over the age of 25, with a somewhat surprising 32% that were between the ages of 18 and 24.