By their “very different but equally excellent” powers combined, Barbie and Oppenheimer have given Australian cinemas their best weekend since the pandemic began – and for at least one exhibitor, its best weekend ever.
Greta Gerwig’s take on the iconic doll – played by Margot Robbie – snapped up $19.6 million from 768 screens, or $21.7 million with previews, marking the best opening for a film this year, the second best debut of the post-pandemic era, behind only Spider-Man: No Way Home and the seven the seventh highest opening ever.
Australia is the fifth highest grossing market for Barbie worldwide. Pro-rata, the local result is ahead of the US/Canada opening of $US155 million (where the opening was the highest ever for a film directed by a woman).
Worldwide figures tally a whopping $US337 million from 70 markets, while the $US183 million international result marks Warner Bros. biggest opening for a non-franchise film.
Christopher Nolan’s three-hour historical epic Oppenheimer, distributed by Universal, captured $9.4 million from 489 screens. With the exception of the Dark Knight films, that’s Nolan’s best start in Australia.
In the US/Canada, it brought in a higher than anticipated $US80.5 million, with worldwide figures at $US174.2 million. Some 20 per cent of the global figure comes via IMAX, marking Nolan’s top IMAX opening ever.
Locally, IMAX Melbourne has sold 37,000 tickets for the film so far and held back-to-back sold-out sessions across the weekend.
“Nolan’s latest film has exceeded our already high expectations with sessions selling out into September,” IMAX Melbourne acting general manager Jeremy Fee tells IF.
“We’re proud to be the only place in the Southern Hemisphere presenting the movie on IMAX 1570 Film with movie-goers travelling from Sydney, Perth, Brisbane, Adelaide and even Japan just to experience Oppenheimer in the format Nolan truly intends for the film to be seen in.”
Overall Numero data puts the top 20 titles at $33.9 million, a 140 per cent increase on the previous. Barbie and Oppenheimer together captured an 87 per cent market share.
Movio data suggests that 75 per cent of the Australian moviegoers to attend Barbie were women, with the average age 31. Some 60 per cent were infrequent moviegoers (have attended less than two sessions in the last six months).
Conversely, 64 per cent of those to attend Oppenheimer were male, with the average age 32. Around 52 per cent of attendees were infrequent moviegoers.
Thirty-eight per cent and 26.5 per cent of opening weekend tickets were purchased pre-release for Barbie and Oppenheimer respectively.
Village Cinemas programming manager Geoff Chard tells IF the Barbienheimer weekend was “nothing short of phenomenal”. Both films surpassing even its highest hopes, with box office and admission levels only ever seen previously with Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame.
For Barbie, he predicts that a $60 million+ lifetime result is “easily achievable”, and with fantastic word of mouth, could go significantly higher.
“Our week two and three pre-sales for the film are well and truly above what we would normally expect to see too,” he says.
For Oppenheimer, he expects the film to surpass the $35 million lifetime gross of Inception.
“Reviews of the film have been extremely positive, and audiences are clearly gravitating to the big screen experience, especially 70mm at our Rivoli Cinemas,” he says.
For Sydney’s Hayden Orpheum Picture Palace Barbenheimer weekend helped to deliver the highest grossing weekend in the 88-year history of the venue.
Oppenheimer, which it is also showing in 70mm, broke the record for the highest grossing opening for a film ever at the theatre, while Barbie also smashed records to be its second best opening ever.
“To say we are absolutely blown away by the trading results of this weekend would be a major understatement,” says GM Alex Temesvari.
“The Orpheum team and I are truly humbled and grateful to see so many movie lovers enthusiastically embrace both of these very different but equally excellent films.
“The unprecedented demand for tickets and the high number of sell-out sessions reaffirms without a shadow of doubt the power of the cinematic experience.”
Barbie also smashed records at Melbourne’s Cinema Nova, overtaking The Grand Budapest Hotel to become its biggest opener ever, while CEO Kristian Connelly tells IF Oppenheimer looks likely to rank among its top ten opening weeks. He adds many Nova customers opted for the back-to-back double feature experience, with programming configured to suit.
“While it remains to be seen whether the full cinema week becomes the biggest in Cinema Nova’s history, it’s interesting to note that the current record is held by the first week of January 2020, when Greta Gerwig’s Little Women opened at Nova. This, coupled with the nation-best result for Ladybird at Cinema Nova, shows how our audience’s enthusiasm for the filmmaker is enormous,” Connelly says.
“The majority of the Barbie audience was seen wearing pink in almost all of our sessions while many other customers embraced Oppenheimer’s aesthetic by donning hats, waistcoats and ties.”
Majestic Cinemas CEO Kieren Dell tells IF the weekend was similarly one of the busiest he and his team can remember. However, he noted that Barbie was four times more popular than Oppenheimer at his regional NSW and Queensland circuit, while nationally and internationally it was typically double.
“This may reflect a skew towards adult females in the regions, the inability to screen as many comparable Oppenheimer sessions with less screens in regional areas, the skew towards premium formats in the city for Oppenheimer, or simply that there was not the same driver (or budget) to see both movies on the opening weekend (which was probably more appealing to younger demographics). Oppenheimer should pick up in relative popularity in coming weeks given the older population generally in regional areas.
“We are hoping that both have good legs across the next few weeks, and the indications are they both will.”
Barbienheimer fever meant a majority of the holdover titles in the top 10 dropped between 60-80 per cent, and around half lost more than 100 screens.
In third position was Paramount’s Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning – Part One, which dipped 59 per cent in its second to $2.3 million, having lost 203 screens (it remains on 403). That brings the tally for the seventh film in the franchise to $16 million.
Disney’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, now in its fourth weekend, harvested $630,437 to move to $15 million, while stablemate Elemental drew $573,234 in its sixth, advancing to $15.9 million.
Sony horror Insidious: The Red Door drew $362,721 in its third, moving to $3.7 million, with stablemate Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse just behind with an eighth weekend result of $300,564 meaning it’s now just shy of $40 million.
Paramount’s Transformers: Rise of the Beasts stands at $12.2 million after five weekends, bringing in an additional $263,104. Also in its fifth frame, Sony comedy No Hard Feelings is at $6.4 million after an extra $102,915.
Rounding out the top 10 was Disney’s The Little Mermaid, which drew $85,618 in its ninth to move to $23.3 million.
Australian film The New Boy came in at 11th place, and despite Barbenheimer lost only 3 screens. It drew $48,378 in its third weekend for Roadshow, bringing its tally to $620,052.
Of the other local films in release, John Farnham: Finding the Voice has made $4.5 million after ten weekends for Sony; it will air on Seven tonight, so presumably the theatrical run for the record-breaking doc is at an end.
Madman’s Carmen, a French-Australian co-production, fell 74 per cent in its second weekend to earn $4,791, moving to $57,439.
Another Madman title, doco The Giants, is at $581,874 after 14 weekends, while Bonsai’s The Last Daughter is at $168,999 after six.