Barbenheimer

Two big movies have been released this last weekend and on the same day too and both are at opposite ends of the spectrum, one is a heavy duty movie that revolves around the creation of the atomic bomb, Oppenheimer and the other, the other, a favourite of children around the world, much loved Barbie.

Interestingly, both movies talk about the end of the world, death and existential crisis albeit in completely different forms. With audience clamouring to watch both on the same weekend or even the same day, the term Barbenheimer has been coined. Both films are expected to rake in a ton of money at the box office.

The Barbenheimer phenomenon

Oppenheimer measures three hours while Barbie is an hour and 54 minutes.

AMC Theatres reported that people bought 20,000 tickets to see both movies on the same day. A week later that number doubled to 40,000.

Do actors in both films know about the Barbenheimer phenomenon? Apparently the do. Barbie’s Margot Robbie was seen posing in front of the Oppenheimer poster which Oppenheimer’s Cillian Murphy gushed about how thrilled he was about the double release.

“I mean, I‘ll be going to see Barbie 100 percent – I can’t wait to see it. I think it’s just great for the industry and for audiences that we have two amazing films by amazing filmmakers coming out on the same day, Yeah, you can spend the whole day in the cinema – what’s better than that?.”

The New York Times reported that Barbie sold and estimated $155 million in tickets at US cinemas while it collected an additional $182 million overseas.

Oppenheimer raked in $80.5 million in the United States and Canada and some $94 million overseas.

As expected Barbie had a largely female audience while Oppenheimer had a bigger male audience. Both movies received good reviews from critics as well.

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The photo above is from Wikipedia