We’re six weeks out from the biggest showdown of the Summer box-office period – Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” and Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie”.
For well over a year, both films have been scheduled for release on the same day – July 21st 2023. The online sphere has been playing up an imagined rivalry between the pair, with countless memes and TV shirt printings having fun with it.
Certainly, the juxtaposition of the colorful, cheery PG-13 Barbie with the partly monochromatic and serious R-rated biopic of the famed atomic physicist is going to make for one of the more interesting face-offs this year.
Cut to today with news from The Quorum, a website dedicated to long-lead pre-release film tracking created by the former head of research for nearly 20 years at agency UTA. The site claims each week, they survey more than 2,000 people about upcoming films and then “crunch the data with expert analysis to provide critical and actionable insights”.
Their newest report, shared by Matt Belloni from Puck News contains the first box office projections anywhere for the two films, with the site projecting a $45-55 million domestic opening for “Barbie” whilst “Oppenheimer” is on track for a $30-35 million debut. Both films have budgets of around $100 million.
The main issue for “Oppenheimer” appears to be awareness – or lack thereof. Even six weeks out and with multiple trailers having been released over the past year, the site says awareness of the film is still low at 24% compared to 53% for “Barbie”.
Of course, the short-term marketing for both films is about to begin with TV spots and promotion, which should help boost the “Oppenheimer” awareness and could impact these figures (as will critical reviews in a few weeks).
Both films will enter a busy market, with “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” opening the week before and Disney’s “Haunted Mansion” arriving the week after.
