'Barbie' trounces 'Oppenheimer' at N American cinemas
With legions of pink-clad moviegoers swarming movie theatres, Warner Bros' "Barbie" conquered North American box offices in its debut weekend, raking in US$155 million, Sunday estimates showed – nearly double the cash of its second-place competitor. The other half of the much-anticipated "Barbenheimer" cinematic weekend – which saw Universal's much darker biopic "Oppenheimer" released the same day and spurred hundreds of thousands to organise their own double features – brought in its own whopping US$80.5 million, according to figures from Exhibitor Relations. "This is a record-shattering opening" for "Barbie," wrote David A Gross, of Franchise Entertainment Research. "No comedic film of any kind has opened higher than US$85.9 (million) over a 3-day weekend." "Oppenheimer," meanwhile, saw a "superb opening," Gross noted. According to industry estimates, some 200,000 people were thought to have purchased tickets to both films. Millions more were likely to catch both films on separate days. The coincidental same-day release of the two starkly different but highly anticipated films – one following an iconic doll ready to paint the world pink and the other about the scientist who helped invent the atomic bomb – created a pop-culture phenomenon that transcended the individual marketing for either film. "This was a phenomenal experience for people who love movies on the big screen," president and CEO of the National Association of Theatre Owners Michael O'Leary said in a statement on Sunday. "It was a truly historic weekend." The "Barbenheimer" films together left a massive gulf between the weekend's top two box office spots and the number three slot, occupied by "Sound of Freedom." The controversial action thriller from Santa Fe Films and Angel Studios, which critics say plays into QAnon conspiracy theories, brought in US$20.14 million. Fourth and fifth place saw the sort of franchise sequels that have come to dominate the box office recently. Paramount's "Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One," the latest in the long-running series starring Tom Cruise, brought in US$19.5 million. "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny," from Disney, brought in US$6.7 million. This "Indy" episode, likely the last, again stars Harrison Ford as a whip-cracking archaeologist. (AFP)