Plastic is fantastic, as Barbie blew away even optimistic projections to bring in $155 million at the domestic box office this past weekend. Not to be outdone, Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer also blasted past estimates to earn $80.5 million.
Combined, they helped propel the domestic box office to the fourth-biggest weekend ever, according to The Hollywood Reporter. It’s also the largest haul since Avengers: Endgame premiered back in 2019. That’s not all, either. This is apparently the first three-day weekend ever in which one film–Barbie–raked in over $100 million while another–in this case, Oppenheimer–made over $50 million. So the Barbie-Oppenheimer double feature demand was real, indeed.
Barbie did end up almost doubling Oppenheimer, though what’s astonishing is that predictions from last month put their figures at $80 million and $40 million, respectively. Barbie started the weekend with huge numbers and kept going to hit $155 million. That means Greta Gerwig now holds the record for biggest debut for a film directed by a woman, topping Patty Jenkins with Wonder Woman ($103.3 million) as well as Anna Bowden and Ryan Fleck with Captain Marvel ($153 million).
Meanwhile, Oppenheimer now serves as the third-biggest opening ever for Nolan, only being beaten by The Dark Knight ($154.8 million) and The Dark Knight Rises ($160.9 million). Keep in mind the film has a three-hour runtime and is R-rated, too. Then consider its $80.5 million haul tops the debuts of The Flash and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
One movie that did suffer in the face of Barbenheimer seems to be Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1, per The Hollywood Reporter. The Tom Cruise-starring vehicle only earned $19.5 million domestically in its second weekend, resulting in a franchise-worst 64% drop. So it’ll be intriguing how the action flick continues to perform in the weeks ahead. For its part, Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning did jump out to a record-setting start globally.
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