2023-07-23 17:33:42
The summer film “Barbie”, preceded by an intense marketing campaign, had the best launch of the year 2023 at the North American box office, with 155 million dollars in revenue during a prosperous weekend also marked by the release of “Oppenheimer” (80.5 million), the specialized firm Comscore announced on Sunday.
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The two highly anticipated films should allow cinemas in the United States and Canada to total their best weekend receipts since the COVID-19 pandemic, which dealt a severe blow to cinemas, according to specialized sites The Hollywood Reporter and Deadline.
Propelled by a pink marketing wave from the toy group Mattel, which launched the first Barbie doll in 1959, and from Warner Bros, partners for production, Greta Gerwig’s comedy is doing better for its launch than “Super Mario”, inspired by the famous video game character (146 million at the start of April), or than the sequel to James Cameron’s Avatar (“Avatar: the way of the water”, 134 million in December 2022).
In a pop and ironic reinterpretation, where dripping pink and sequins are to be taken in the second degree, Barbie, embodied by Margot Robbie — Ryan Gosling plays Ken — is asked to swap her high heels for Birkenstock sandals to leave her perfect world of Barbie Land and dive into the real world.
Phil Lewis/WENN
According to specialized sites, it is the best launch in North American theaters for a film directed by a woman, ahead of “Wonder Woman” by Patty Jenkins (2017) and “Captain Marvel”, co-directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck (2019).
Oppenheimer, a biographical film by Christopher Nolan regarding the American physicist who developed the atomic bomb, is also making a very good start for a 3-hour film, with 80.5 million receipts, according to Comscore.
The simultaneous release of these two highly anticipated films with opposing stories in the middle of summer created a stir among moviegoers, and the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon took hold of social networks.
According to the National Association of Theater Owners in the United States, more than 200,000 moviegoers planned to see both films on the same day over the weekend.
Controversial child trafficking film “Sound of Freedom” topped the podium with $20 million, followed by “Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning” ($19.5 million) and “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” ($6.7 million).
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