Greta Gerwig’s Barbie blasts into the blockbuster record books with $155 million US opening

Legions of Barbie-core and biopic followers descended onto theaters this weekend for the “Barbenheimer” field workplace phenomenon, however one pink-plastered efficiency, specifically, got here out on high. Greta Gerwig’s Barbie has already smashed a number of data, raking in $155 million domestically over the weekend — the highest US opening ever for a movie directed by a lady — beating the earlier $153 million achieved by Anna Boden’s Captain Marvel.

“The massive, overwhelming response we’ve seen out there proves what we’ve known from the beginning: that ‘Barbie’ is not only an incredibly special film, but clearly the theatrical event of the summer, if not the year,” mentioned Jeff Goldstein, Warner Bros. Pictures president of home distribution in a press release. “We couldn’t be more thrilled to be part of it, and congratulate everyone involved in this brilliant labor of love.”

Barbie additionally dethrones The Super Mario Bros Movie ($146 million) as the highest-grossing home opening for 2023, and achieved $337 million in mixed worldwide box-office gross sales. There are not any actual losers this weekend although — Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer opened forward of trade estimations with $174.2 million earned worldwide, with round $80.5 million achieved domestically. According to AVClub, “Barbenheimer’s” mixed earnings contributed to this being the fourth-biggest field workplace weekend for all films in US historical past, and the largest not pushed by Disney franchises like Star Wars or Marvel.

Oppenheimer equally broke a number of data by itself. According to Deadline (which has compiled an inventory of all the field workplace data achieved by each films) the R-rated historic drama had the largest international opening day and weekend for a biopic, having outperformed Bohemian Rhapsody’s $124 million. It’s additionally Nolan’s third-highest-grossing opening weekend ever in each home and international markets, and his largest non-superhero film up to now behind The Dark Knight Rises ($161 million home) and The Dark Knight ($158 million).

If something, these figures present that the hype surrounding “Barbenheimer” was earnest. What initially began as a joke — enjoying off that two films with such stark variations in tone could be sharing an opening weekend — grew to an web phenomenon that noticed 200,000 US theater-goers shopping for tickets to see each films on the similar day, in line with the National Association of Theater Owners. Rather than decide the low-hanging fruit of constructing this occasion a “boys vs girls” contest, viewers have chosen to help each films. It’s fantastic to see such a celebration of cinema that doesn’t contain a multiversal superhero film or its fifteenth sequel.