Barbenheimer: Barbie and Oppenheimer release spark record-breaking weekend for UK cinemas

UK cinemas had the busiest weekend for ticket sales in four years thanks to the release of Barbie and Oppenheimer – with some brands suggesting as many as a fifth of customers saw both in one day.

The two films, released on Friday, have contrasting storylines, causing the tandem release to become something of a meme online.

Greta Gerwig’s comedy, starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, is a feminist film featuring the famous doll Barbie. While Christopher Nolan’s biographical thriller – starring Emily Blunt, Cillian Murphy and Florence Pugh, chronicles the life of physicist J Robert Oppenheimer and his role in developing the first atomic bomb.

Many UK movie fans purchased tickets to see both films in a double bill dubbed by social media as “Barbenheimer”.

Cinema brand Vue – which has 19 branches in London – said 2,000 screenings for Barbie were sold out over the weekend. In total, the cinema chain had more than 4,000 sell-out sessions across the country during the weekend.

This means it was the brand’s busiest weekend since Avengers: Endgame was released in 2019.

Rival band ODEON said on Monday it had welcomed over 1 million guests through its doors in just four days after the joint release, marking the busiest weekend since reopening post-pandemic. It said he weekend was its biggest weekend since Avengers: Endgame in 2019 as well as the cinema chain’s busiest Saturday since 2015.

Tim Richards, chief executive and founder of Vue International, said: “Vue saw its highest weekend admissions since Avengers: Endgame in 2019 with the release of Barbie and Oppenheimer, proving that when the movies are there, our customers will come to watch them on the big screen.

“Barbie is tracking to become the biggest film of 2023 and has a good chance of getting into the Top 10 highest grossing films of all time.

“It is an incredibly exciting moment for the industry, and we expect this trend to continue for the coming weeks.”

On Sunday, Universal Pictures said Oppenheimer, which stars Cillian Murphy and Florence Pugh, made £8.05 million in the UK and Ireland over the weekend. It grossed $174.2 million (£135 million) globally.

Meanwhile, Warner Bros’s Barbie opened to £17.5 million ($33.4 million ) in the UK, fuelling a $337 (£262 million) global weekend.

Gerwig herself has also become a record-breaker, as Barbie has taken the biggest opening weekend of a film made by a woman. She has taken the record from Patty Jenkins, who previously held the record for Wonder Woman‘s $103 million debut.

Meanwhile in the US, Barbie took 155 million dollars (£120 million) in ticket sales from North American cinemas from 4,243 locations.

Oppenheimer also soared past expectations, taking in 80.5 million dollars (£62.6 million) from 3,610 cinemas in the US and Canada, marking Nolan’s biggest non-Batman debut and one of the best starts for an R-rated biographical drama.

It’s also the first time in US history that one movie opened to more than 100 million dollars (£77.8 million) and another movie opened to more than 80 million dollars (£62.2 million) in the same weekend.

In the states, women drove the Barbie opening, making up 65 per cent of the audience, according to PostTrak, and 40 per cent of ticket buyers were under the age of 25 for the PG-13 rated movie.

Oppenheimer audiences, meanwhile, were 62 per cent male and 63 per cent over the age of 25, with a somewhat surprising 32 per cent that were between the ages of 18 and 24.

Both Barbie and Oppenheimer scored well with critics with 90 per cent and 94 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes, respectively, and audiences who gave both films an A CinemaScore.

Oppenheimer had the vast majority (80 per cent) of premium large format screens at its disposal. Some 25 cinemas in North America boasted IMAX 70mm screenings, most of which were completely sold out all weekend - accounting for 2 per cent of the total gross. Cinemas even scrambled to add more to accommodate the demand including 1am and 6am screenings, which also sold out.

“Nolan’s films are truly cinematic events,” said Jim Orr, Universal’s president of domestic distribution.

IMAX showings alone made up 26 per cent of the domestic gross from only 411 screens and 20 per cent of the global gross, and Oppenheimer will have at least a three-week run on those high-demand screens.

“This is a phenomenon beyond compare,” said Rich Gelfond, the chief executive of IMAX, in a statement. “Around the world, we’ve seen sellouts at 4am shows and people travelling hours across borders to see Oppenheimer in IMAX 70mm.”

“It was a truly historic weekend and continues the positive box office momentum of 2023,” said Michael O’Leary, president and chief executive of the National Association of Theatre Owners.

“People recognised that something special was happening and they wanted to be a part of it.”

And yet in the background looms disaster as Hollywood studios continue to squabble with striking actors and writers over a fair contract.

Barbie and Oppenheimer were the last films on the 2023 calendar to get a massive, global press tour. Both went right up to the 11th hour, squeezing in every last moment with their movie stars.

Oppenheimer even pushed up its London premiere by an hour, knowing that Emily Blunt, Matt Damon and Cillian Murphy would have to leave to symbolically join the picket lines by the time the movie began.

Without movie stars to promote their films, studios have started pushing back some autumn releases, including the high-profile Zendaya tennis drama Challengers.