movie theater
“Barbie” lands best North American debut of the year
Ryan Gosling as Ken and Margot Robbie as Barbie in a scene from the film “Barbie”. photo
© -/Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures/dpa
The film by director Greta Gerwig is making the box office ring in the USA and Canada. In Germany, too, “Barbie” jumps to number one in the cinema charts.
The cranked up cinema comedy “Barbie” had the best start of the year in North American cinemas. It clearly pushed the atomic bomb drama “Oppenheimer” into second place, as several US media reported.
The live-action adaptation, about a trip to real-life California by the famous toy doll and her boyfriend Ken, is estimated to have grossed about $155 million in the US and Canada as of Sunday.
Director Greta Gerwig (“Lady Bird”) has landed the best start ever for a film directed by a woman, wrote the industry website “The Hollywood Reporter”.
“Oppenheimer” just behind “Barbie”
The historical drama about the physicist Robert Oppenheimer, who is considered the “father of the atomic bomb”, has earned around 80.5 million dollars. Because the film by Christopher Nolan (“Inception”, “Dunkirk”) with a running time of 180 minutes is longer than the 114-minute “Barbie”, the cinemas were able to schedule fewer screenings.
“Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1” and the child trafficker drama “Sound of Freedom”, which was controversial because of its proximity to conspiracy myths, followed with around 19 million dollars in ticket sales. According to Variety, it was the fourth best weekend in North American cinema history, not adjusting for inflation.
Writer and actor strike
For weeks, the studios had successfully fueled the hype for the double release of the two films: According to a survey by the US cinema owners’ association, more than 200,000 people saw the two films on the same day, also thanks to very good reviews.
For the cinemas, these numbers are a relief in the midst of the script and actor strike – the market mood is also burdened by the fact that alleged hits like “Indiana Jones and the Wheel of Destiny”, “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1” and the Pixar film “Elemental” fell far short of expectations.
Thanks to strong results also on foreign markets and budgets of around 145 million US dollars for “Barbie” and around 100 million dollars for “Oppenheimer” both films should be highly profitable. In Germany, too, “Barbie” made it to number one in the cinema charts.