On July 21st, 2023 two of the most opposite movies were released in theaters simultaneously. Oppenheimer and Barbie came to theaters, enticing hoards of people to return to a viewing experience that was popular prior to COVID. The media crazed over the collision of these two films and dubbed  “Barbenheimer” one of the biggest cultural phenomena of the year. The fame of these two movies has not died down though two months has elapsed since their initial release. Through regular theaters, social media, and the internet in general has been fascinated on what this double feature has done to modern society. It should be noted that both of these films are not intended for children, but have ratings suited for more mature/adult audiences.

The live action version of Barbie, featuring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling and directed by Greta Gerwig explores the bright pink world of “barbieland” as well as the hardships of modern humanity. On the other hand the film Oppenheimer, directed by Christopher Nolan featuring Cillian Murphy and Florence Pugh, follows the journey of Robert J. Oppenheimer as he creates the atomic bomb – one of the most dangerous bombs known to man. Even before the two movies were released, social media was raving over the hit double feature. People were already making watch plans, buying outfits, making posters, and more. The media made a huge contribution to “Barbenheimers” overall profit, amounting to over 1 billion dollars,  making this movie collaboration one of the highest and fastest growing of all time. 

A very common thing that people did was watch both films back-to-back; AMC theaters reported that “20,000 of its AMC Stubs members had purchased tickets for a double feature. If you’re counting, that’s 294 minutes of movie watching.” These numbers only include the AMC Stub members, members of the company’s movie rewards program. Amid the general audience, 300,000 double feature tickets have been sold so far. Social media went absolutely feral over this double feature “marathon” as people would dress up as Barbie, Oppenheimer, or even both! Then, they watched both movies in a single day. This amounted to around five hours, including ads and breaks. The “Barbenheimer” industry skyrocketed in profit making hundreds of thousands more dollars a day. As a result, “Barbenheimer” is now one of the highest grossing movie duos in the history of cinema. That being said, people didn’t watch both movies for the sake of the ironic opposite movie idea. Both movies combine included some of the worlds most known and iconic actors and actresses of the 21st century. The two movies included Florence Pugh, Robert Downy Jr, Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, Will Ferrel, Kate McKinnon, Arianna Greenblatt, and so many more talented actors. Additionally, the back tracks for Barbie made the top 100 billboard and are still ranked right now.

It’s not common for big headline movies to be released on the same day. The last time this happened was 15 years ago when Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight and Phyllia Lloyd’s hit film Mama Mia! took pop culture by storm. It seems that every fifteen years there is a new double feature that consist of two hit films that are complete opposite of eachother. These statistics could be a very big factor when it comes to the answer behind this double feature. Studios may just want to keep up the recurring sensations every fifteen years.  There were many rumors on why this double feature was happening. The BBC addresses a wandering rumor “that Warner (studios) had vengefully put Barbie up against Oppenheimer because (Christopher) Nolan had left the studio.” As this rumor has not been verified as true, the question remains. 

After all the movie craze over the summer has died down, but Barbenheimer is still up and running and one of the biggest pop culture phenomena of the year! 

References 

Bahr, Lindsey.  “The story behind Barbenheimer, the summer’s most online movie showdown.” APNews, The Associated Press, 14 July 2023. https://apnews.com/article/barbenheimer-barbie-vs-oppenheimer-61a6ec6c67359b851ddeccd6d655b5ab.