Who will win in terms of box office and audience popularity: “Barbie” or “Oppenheimer”?

On July 21, the long-awaited release of two major films of this summer took place worldwide: “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer.” Christopher Nolan and Greta Gerwig's films opened above expectations and created some difficulties for Tom Cruise: the seventh installment in the Mission: Impossible franchise suffered the biggest second-week box office decline in franchise history, at 64%. Thus, the question of who is the winner remains open. Let's look into the details.

According to analysts, the counterprogramming strategy was successful. Plenty of moviegoers chose to watch Barbie and Oppenheimer back to back, which greatly bolstered both films rather than diminishing their appeal. The weekend of July 21-23 was the fourth-highest grossing weekend in U.S. box office history (topped only by Avengers 3 and 4 and Star Wars Episode 7), marking the first such surge in activity since the pandemic began.

In addition, both films, "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer", are predicted to have long-term popularity. American audiences rated both films with the highest grade of A (CinemaScore is only higher than A+), and on Rotten Tomatoes the audience ratings were 90% and 94%, respectively. However, Barbie faced criticism on Metacritic, where the user rating dropped to 5.5 (mainly due to negative reviews of the film's feminist themes). On Kinopoisk, the average rating for Christopher Nolan's film was 8.7, and Greta Gerwig's film was 7.4.

In the US, Barbie had a 65% female audience, which is unusual for films with box office receipts of $100 million or more. 47% of Oppenheimer's US box office came from premium formats, and IMAX theaters alone brought in $35 million for the studio. According to the CEO of the Canadian Film Corporation, some people even traveled to other countries to watch the film in IMAX theaters of this type.

Greta Gerwig's comedy opened with $155 million in the US, marking the best opening of 2023 and a record opening ever for a female director (beating Captain Marvel's $153 million and Wonder Woman's $103 million). This success was unexpected, as the studio had predicted around 75 million for the opening weekend. The film's worldwide gross of $145 million has already reached $337 million. We can safely say that the film instantly paid for itself and made a profit.

As for Oppenheimer, the film, a three-hour talk drama, opened with $80.5 million against projections of just $50 million. This amazing success on world screens brought films with a total budget of 100 million to 174 million dollars.

As the two films roll out, we will find out which of these films will become the box office leader in summer 2023.