Barbie and Oppenheimer Combine for Impressive First at the Box Office

If you went to a theater this weekend to see either Barbie or Oppenheimer (or both!), you probably noticed that the place was a little more crowded than you’re used to. Screenings of both films have been packed since Thursday night, with some locations even showing sold out shows through the weekend. The release of Barbenheimer is an unprecedented event, which is now yielding unprecedented results. In fact, the box office has never seen two movies open on the same day and perform this well.

There has never before been a weekend at the box office where two movies both debuted to more than $80 million domestically. Barbie, with Oppenheimer opening at $80.5 million, a massive number for a three-hour historical biopic. Few films this year have debuted to $80 million in their opening weekends, even when they didn’t have another major blockbuster arriving on the same exact day.

There have only been three instances where two movies have opened to even $50 million apiece on the same weekend: Monsters University and World War Z in 2013, Madagascar: Europe’s Most Wanted and Prometheus in 2012, and Wall-E and Wanted in 2008.

The performance from Oppenheimer was even more impressive when you consider how much Barbie made in its debut. When opening against a another first-week film that debuted to more than $100 million, no movie has ever managed to earn about $36 million in its opening window. Central Intelligence earned $35.5 million back in 2016, opening against Finding Dory‘s $135 million, and that was the biggest total ever for a film in that situation. Oppenheimer more than doubled Central Intelligence‘s total.

Barbie Breaking Box Office Records

On its own, Barbie is breaking all sorts of records. Gerwig’s latest represents the biggest opening weekend ever for a female director, as well as the biggest domestic opening weekend of the entire year. Barbie even outperformed The Super Mario Bros. Movie when it comes to opening weekend, passing 2023’s top earner by nearly $10 million through the opening frame.

Barbie has also passed the entire North American theatrical runs of some of 2023’s most expensive films in just one weekend. Fast X only made $145 million domestically through its entire run, while The Flash topped out at $107 million. It took Barbie three days to eclipse those totals, and the film will pass the total domestic grosses of Transformers: Rise of the Beasts and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny in the coming days.

In Barbie, to live in Barbie Land is to be a perfect being in a perfect place. Unless you have a full-on existential crisis. Or you’re a Ken. From Oscar-nominated writer/director Greta Gerwig comes Barbie, which hit theaters on July 21st. Barbie stars Oscar-nominees Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling as Barbie and Ken, alongside America Ferrera, Kate McKinnon, Michael Cera, Ariana Greenblatt, Issa Rae, Rhea Perlman, and Will Ferrell. The film also stars Ana Cruz Kayne, Emma Mackey, Hari Nef, Alexandra Shipp, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Simu Liu, Ncuti Gatwa, Scott Evans, Jamie Demetriou, Connor Swindells, Sharon Rooney, Nicola Coughlan, Ritu Arya, Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter Dua Lipa and Oscar-winner Helen Mirren. Gerwig directed Barbie from a screenplay by Gerwig & Oscar nominee Noah Baumbach, based on Barbie by Mattel.