Directorial achievement of Greta Gerwig with Barbie has created history, as the film secured an impressive opening weekend gross of US$377m (£293m, A$560m) worldwide, marking it as the highest-grossing debut ever for a film directed by a woman.
In the North American box office, which includes both the US and Canada, Barbie dominated by securing the top spot with an extraordinary $155m in ticket sales from 4,243 locations. It surpassed The Super Mario Bros Movie and all Marvel films released this year, making it the biggest opening of the year.
“Barbenheimer”
The social media-fuelled fusion of Greta Gerwig directorial of Barbie and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer as “Barbenheimer” brought moviegoers back to the theatres in record numbers to see both films as a double feature. Oppenheimer also soared past expectations, taking in $80.5m from 3,610 theatres in the US and Canada, making it Nolan’s biggest non-Batman debut and one of the best ever starts for an R-rated biographical drama.
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 on Monday US time, it will probably turn out to be the fourth-biggest box office weekend of all time with more than $300m industrywide.
Internationally, Barbie earned $182m from 69 territories, fuelling a $337m global weekend, while Oppenheimer did $93.7m from 78 territories, even managing to surpass Barbie in India, for a $174.2m global total. In the UK, cinema chain Vue said a fifth of customers saw both films in a double bill on the weekend, which was the biggest for UK cinema ticket sales since Covid.
Barbenheimer affected ticket sales for Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part I, which fell 64% after a healthy opening weekend and strong reviews. Having lost Imax screens to Oppenheimer, the Tom Cruise vehicle added $19.5m to North American box office takings, which reached $118.8m.
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.
