The Barbenheimer phenomenon just kept on growing at the box office as both Greta Gerwig’s fantasy-comedy “Barbie” and Christopher Nolan’s historical drama “Oppenheimer” closed out their opening weekends bigger than any projections.
By end of Sunday, “Barbie” finished with $162 million domestically in its first weekend and saw only a 9% decline in business between Saturday and Sunday.
It’s the biggest opening weekend of the year and the biggest debut ever for a film directed by a woman. Internationally the film fared even better with a $194.3 million overseas haul – meaning its final global opening weekend haul was a jaw-dropping $356 million.
“Oppenheimer” too similarly came in ahead of expectations with $82.4 million in the final count for its domestic haul. It also pulled in $98 million overseas for a worldwide opening weekend of $180 million. That’s one of the best starts ever for an R-rated film and a biopic. Around 20% of that came from IMAX screens.
The box office had its fourth-biggest weekend in history with over $300 million domestically, behind only the launch weekends of the third and fourth “Avengers” films and “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”.
AMC Entertainment set a new post-COVID record for global admissions revenue as well this past weekend with more than 7.8 million moviegoers hitting theaters. The exhibitor says this past Saturday was their busiest day since July 2019 and the fifth highest single-day U.S. admissions ticket revenues in its 103-year history.
All eyes now turn towards next weekend and what kind of ‘hold’ both films will have. Their only competition is Disney’s “Haunted Mansion” which is expected to debut around the $30 million range next weekend and will likely come in behind the phenomenon of these two films.
Source: Variety
