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Barbenheimer (/ˈbɑːrbənˌhaɪmər/ BARB-ən-HIGH-mər) is an Internet phenomenon that began circulating on social media before the simultaneous theatrical release of two blockbuster films, Barbie and Oppenheimer, on July 21, 2023, in the United States and several other countries. The word is a portmanteau of the films' titles. The dichotomy of Barbie—a fantasy comedy by Greta Gerwig about the fashion doll Barbie—and Oppenheimer—an epic biographical thriller by Christopher Nolan about physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, scientific director of the Manhattan Project, which developed the first nuclear weapons during World War II—prompted a comedic response from Internet users, including memes and merchandise. Polygon described the two films as "extreme opposites", and Variety called the phenomenon "the movie event of the year".

The films' simultaneous release was initially an instance of counterprogramming. As their release date approached, instead of Barbenheimer creating a rivalry, many suggestions to watch the films as a double feature emerged—as well as in what order to watch them—and cast members of both responded by encouraging audiences to watch the films on the same day. Celebrity participation in this trend included actor Tom Cruise, who purchased tickets to watch both while his latest film, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, was scheduled to be still playing in theaters.

Both films were positively received and exceeded box-office expectations. While the phenomenon began as a joke about the two films' seemingly endless differences, some media commentators have pointed out some similarities between them; both films have been analyzed as exploring existentialism and the theoretical notion of the Anthropocene, both have an Oscar-nominated director and screenwriter and a large ensemble cast, and both were produced by a husband-and-wife production company (Margot Robbie and Tom Ackerley's LuckyChap Entertainment for Barbie, and Nolan and Emma Thomas' Syncopy Inc. for Oppenheimer).

History

Release date dispute

In December 2020, citing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cinema, WarnerMedia, the then-parent company of Warner Bros. Pictures, announced it would release all 17 of its upcoming 2021 films exclusively on its streaming service, HBO Max, in what was nicknamed "Project Popcorn". This decision was heavily criticized the same month by director Christopher Nolan, whose films had been distributed by Warner Bros. since 2002's Insomnia. In a statement to The Hollywood Reporter, Nolan said, "Some of our industry's biggest filmmakers and most important movie stars went to bed the night before thinking they were working for the greatest movie studio and woke up to find out they were working for the worst streaming service." He also said that Warner Bros. " even understand what they're losing", and that the "decision no economic sense". Warner Bros. eventually backed off from the streaming-exclusive releasing plan for their feature films in March 2021.

Nevertheless, after Warner Bros.' initial plan, Nolan met with several rival studios, and announced in September 2021 that his next film, Oppenheimer, would be distributed by Universal Pictures instead of Warner. Conditions for making his next film with Universal included: a budget of $100 million, a marketing budget of equal size, creative control, 20% of first-dollar gross, a blackout period whereby the studio would not release another movie three weeks before or after release and, to ensure it wouldn’t land on a streaming service immediately, a 100-day theatrical window. The following month, Universal announced the July 21, 2023, release date for Oppenheimer.

As announced in December 2020, Warner Bros. originally scheduled Coyote vs. Acme to be released on the same date of July 21, 2023. However, in April 2022, what now became the subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery by that point, announced that the film Barbie would be released on that date instead, having it to directly compete against Oppenheimer. Nolan's disagreement with Warner was cited as the principal cause, though newly-appointed Warner Bros. heads Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy later stated that they wished to reconcile with Nolan; box office experts questioned why Warner refused to move Barbie's release date if they wished to restore relations with Nolan.

The Insider website speculated that Warner Bros.' decision to release its long-in-development Barbie film opposite Nolan's preferred release weekend of mid-July may have been revenge against Nolan for leaving Warner Bros.; beginning with The Dark Knight and with the exception of Interstellar (which was released in early November 2014, as distributed by Paramount Pictures in the United States and Canada, and by Warner Bros. internationally) and Tenet (which was delayed from the original release date of July 17, 2020, following the COVID-19 pandemic), Nolan's films have been released in mid-July.

Nolan was reportedly annoyed by Warner Bros.' decision to schedule Barbie on the same date as Oppenheimer. Despite this, when asked by an Insider reporter whether his split with Warner was indeed the cause of Barbie's release date, Nolan laughed and said he was "not going to answer that question", adding that theaters now have "a crowded marketplace with a lot of different movies ... , and those of us who care about movies are thrilled about that". When asked about the films sharing the same release date, Nolan told an IGN reporter that a "crowded marketplace" is "here and that's terrific."

Counterprogramming

The Barbenheimer phenomenon is an instance of counterprogramming, a marketing strategy where a tonally different film is released on the same day as a major film (in this case, Warner Bros.' Barbie in contrast to Universal's Oppenheimer) to appeal to an underrepresented group. Universal successfully deployed counterprogramming as early as 2002, when it opened the dramedy About a Boy opposite the science-fiction blockbuster Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones. The former enjoyed the strongest opening for a British film that year, finishing with over $130 million.

Men's magazine GQ observed the phenomenon occurring in the holiday season, such as Avatar: The Way of Water and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish in 2022, and compared summer to an "all-or-nothing bloodsport". In 2022, counterprogramming occurred with the summer films Top Gun: Maverick and The Bob's Burgers Movie, in which the latter is a smaller film than the former, allowing for such a dynamic.

The release date of Barbie and Oppenheimer drew parallels to the same U.S. release date of the superhero film The Dark Knight—directed by Oppenheimer director Christopher Nolan about DC Comics' Batman, and distributed by Warner Bros.—and the jukebox musical Mamma Mia!—based on the stage musical of the same name featuring the songs of ABBA, and distributed by Universal—on July 18, 2008. Actor Tom Cruise—who produced and stars in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)—fervently promoted his film over Oppenheimer and Barbie to erode the former's three-week IMAX exclusivity window, while using the latter to show his film on non-IMAX screens.

Public reaction

The first known use of the term "Barbenheimer" was in a post on Twitter dated April 15, 2022, by Matt Neglia, editor-in-chief of the entertainment awards website Next Best Picture. The post made fun of the fact that both films seemed to be constantly announcing new cast members. Neglia later said he didn't remember writing the post.

Use of the term gained pace in 2023, as Internet users noted the juxtaposition of the films and posted memes on Twitter. Fan-made posters for Barbenheimer circulated online. Shirt designers on Etsy began creating merchandise based on the Barbenheimer phenomenon. Early versions of these shirts directly used the wordmarks of the films and placed them side-by-side, while later versions used a Barbie-inspired "Barbenheimer" wordmark. Several tweets referenced the Sherbet Homes in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, side-by-side homes noted for one's black demeanor and the other's pink appearance.

Two Dallas video editors made US$14,400 selling Barbenheimer shirts. Businesses have also posted about the phenomenon; a Barnes & Noble store in Olympia, Washington, presented a "Barbeinheimer [sic] Starter Pack" on TikTok, accruing 30,000 likes.

Marketing

The films' marketing differed greatly. Barbie's marketing, estimated to cost $150 million to Oppenheimer's $100 million, used a wide range of immersive partnerships and tie-in products, including fuchsia-colored Xbox consoles, apparels from Crocs, and a real-life Barbie Dreamhouse bookable through Airbnb. Oppenheimer took a more low-key approach, aiming to cultivate intrigue with trailers and an online countdown to the 78th anniversary of the first nuclear explosion.

Barbie held a premiere on July 12, 2023, in London, where Oppenheimer held another the next day; on July 14, SAG-AFTRA, an American labor union of film, television, and voice actors, declared a strike action, effectively halting any promotional event that involves any member in the guild. Barbie star Margot Robbie showed her support in the action when questioned by a Sky News reporter at the film's London event. Despite Oppenheimer's London premiere being moved up an hour early, the cast of the film left during the screening in support of the strike. SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher later claimed the studios "duped" the guild into accepting a 12-day-extension for negotiations to continue promoting summer films such as Barbie and Oppenheimer.

Double feature viewing

Many Hollywood personalities and Internet users have viewed the films as a double feature, with a debate on viewing order being part of the meme.

Margot Robbie, who portrays the titular character in Barbie, suggested watching it, then Oppenheimer, and then Barbie again. President Barbie's actor in Barbie, Issa Rae, said that "If you see Oppenheimer last then you might be a bit of a psychopath." CNN Entertainment writer Scottie Andrew recommended watching Oppenheimer first and Barbie second, comparing it to "saving dessert for after dinner".

Writing for Den of Geek, Chris Farnell detailed the merits of both viewing orders. Farnell argued that watching Barbie then Oppenheimer "will leave you upset, confused, and more aware than ever that your existence could be snatched away at any moment by forces totally outside of your control." He concluded that moviegoers should watch Wes Anderson's Asteroid City (2023), Oppenheimer, and Barbie, in that order, asserting that audiences will have a better understanding of Asteroid City's closing message after watching Oppenheimer and Barbie.

Reception

Box office

Projections

Going into their opening weekends, Barbie was projected to gross $90–120 million in its opening weekend, and Oppenheimer was projected to gross $45–50 million. Two weeks before their release, AMC Theatres announced that more than 20,000 AMC Stubs members had pre-booked tickets to both films on the same day, resulting in a 33% increase in double-feature tickets from July 7 to 10. On July 17, AMC announced 40,000 members had pre-ordered tickets. According to cinema chain Vue International, nearly one-fifth of people who bought a ticket for Oppenheimer also bought a ticket for Barbie.

The Barbenheimer phenomenon helped boost box-office revenue, which was still recovering from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and a slow seasonal film season.

The New York Times called the films' dual opening weekend "the last happy weekend for many months", as the 2023 Hollywood labor disputes would likely delay the release of films expected to be award-season contenders.

Gross

Both films exceeded box-office expectations. In the United States and Canada, Barbie grossed $22.3 million in Thursday night previews, while Oppenheimer grossed $10.5 million. This was the first time two movies released in the same weekend have grossed more than $10 million each in their previews. Including previews, the films made $70.5 million and $33 million on their first days, respectively, which led to weekend projections being increased to $160 million and $77 million. The films went on to debut to $162 million and $82.4 million, respectively. The Barbenheimer phenomenon was credited with boosting interest in the films, with a total of 79% of tickets sold over the weekend (52% for Barbie and 27% for Oppenheimer) being for the two films, a total of 18.5 million people. Additionally, Oppenheimer made $4.98 million from audience members who saw the film because their desired Barbie showtime was sold out. IMAX CEO Richard Gelfond described the weekend as a paradigm shift, referring to Oppenheimer bringing in $35 million from 740 IMAX screens. However, Oppenheimer fell short of Inside Out's $90.4 million opening as the largest opening not to top the domestic box office. Barbie and Oppenheimer led the July 21–23 weekend to a total revenue of $310.8 million, making it the fourth-largest aggregate domestic weekend ever, behind the weekends led by the openings of Avengers: Endgame (April 26–28, 2019, $402 million), Avengers: Infinity War (April 27–29, 2018, $314 million), and Star Wars: The Force Awakens (December 18–20, 2015, $313 million).

Film industry reaction

Tom Cruise referenced the phenomenon in his Twitter post in which he held up tickets to Barbie and Oppenheimer with Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One director Christopher McQuarrie and referred to the two films as a double feature; Cruise has financially supported the theatrical box office industry following the success of Top Gun: Maverick and director Steven Spielberg's proclamation that Cruise "saved Hollywood's ass". Gerwig and Barbie star Margot Robbie also joined Cruise's film marathon, and held up tickets to Oppenheimer. Cruise planned to watch Oppenheimer then Barbie. At the premiere of Air, actor and Oppenheimer star Matt Damon told Vanity Fair that audiences are "allowed to go see two movies in a weekend". Director Francis Ford Coppola called the box office success of both films "a victory for cinema."

At the world premiere of Barbie in Los Angeles, Gerwig and Issa Rae praised the double feature concept. Rae said, "I love that there's solidarity though where people tried to pit us against one another but now it's turned into like a double-feature situation". In an interview with La Vanguardia, Oppenheimer star Cillian Murphy endorsed the phenomenon, saying, "My advice would be for people to go see both, on the same day. If they are good films, then that's cinema's gain." At the London premiere for Barbie, Robbie said she wants a Barbenheimer shirt signed by Murphy.

In light of Barbenheimer, other studios concocted similar events to their upcoming releases. This includes "Saw Patrol", named after Saw X and PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie to be released September 29, 2023, though this received a more mixed response.

Analysis

The Economist observed that the "two films encapsulate some of the caprices of the modern movie industry", with Barbie being an IP-driven film projected to gross twice as much (in its opening weekend) as Oppenheimer, a standalone film. The paper also concluded that, in the advent of the increased nuclear anxiety following the Russian invasion of Ukraine and developments around the nuclear arsenals of China and North Korea, audiences are less willing to see a realist drama film such as Oppenheimer than they are eager to see an escapist comedy film such as Barbie, recalling similar instances of the dynamic in American film history. Senior media analyst Paul Dergarabedian of Comscore opined that the Barbenheimer phenomenon was unprecedented, feeling that ordinarily, the simultaneous release of two significant films would have "cannibalized" each other, but in the case of Barbenheimer, would be "additive and complementary". He believes that the phenomenon would attract a wide demographic, with older audiences hearing about Oppenheimer through review pieces and listening to the radio, while Barbie would draw a big audience on its opening weekend because its fear of missing out factor "is going to be off the charts".

Writing for FirstShowing, Alex Billington compared how philosophical both films were, citing concepts present in each such as existentialism, Marcel Proust and how both protagonists discover truth similar to Plato's Cave. Slavoj Žižek, in The New Statesmen, argues that both films feature main characters that attempt to escape fantasy and uncover a deeper reality only to discover that their reality itself is constituted in relation to fantasy.

Though the Internet joke began as a reference to the two films' seeming differences, some writers have pointed out similarities between them, including that "Nolan and Gerwig are both directors, both have huge ensemble casts of stars, and they are both produced by husband and wife production companies". Writing for The Escapist, critic Darren Mooney also found similarities between the two films, noting that both "are about the relationship that exists between imagination and reality, as well as about what happens when ideas begin to manifest themselves in the corporeal world. In both cases, the results are fundamentally terrifying, although the movies reach decidedly different conclusions." Sonia Rao of The Washington Post notes that the two films share a common notion: "The corruptibility of men". Also in the The Washington Post, Tyler Austin Harper wrote that both films explore the theoretical notion of the Anthropocene, the geological epoch defined by humanity's impact: "Despite their apparent differences, both Barbie and Oppenheimer tell the story of core ideas of the 20th century: accelerating militarism and unbounded consumption," Harper writes, "ideas which might well outlive our species in the form of plastic and plutonium's lingering traces across our fragile planet."

Jake Coyle of the Associated Press analyzed the box office gross of Barbie and Oppenheimer and noted that their success may point to audiences wanting more originality in films, following "flopbusters" like The Flash and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, both of which became box-office bombs.

Reviews

Of critics reviewing the double feature, an SFGate reviewer who watched Barbie first judged it to be the better film and "kinda hope" Gerwig would make a film about Oppenheimer. An IndieWire reviewer who watched Oppenheimer first (with several audience members dressed in pink and one wearing a Barbenheimer T-shirt) said the films worked "decently" as a double feature. On the other hand, a reviewer in The Guardian who also watched Oppenheimer first compared the experience to whiplash and to "having your mother's funeral invaded by a flashmob of parking circus clowns".

Notes

1. Also known as Oppenbarbie, Barbieheimer, or Boppenheimer.

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Further reading

• Bahr, Lindsey (July 14, 2023). "The story behind Barbenheimer, the summer's most online movie showdown". Associated Press. Archived from the original on July 17, 2023. Retrieved July 14, 2023.
• D'Alessandro, Anthony (July 23, 2023). "'Barbie' & 'Oppenheimer': A Rundown Of All The Box Office Records Broken". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on July 23, 2023. Retrieved July 23, 2023.
• Frank, Jason (July 7, 2023). "The Dawn of Barbenheimer". Vulture. Archived from the original on July 9, 2023. Retrieved July 9, 2023.
• Ocampo, Josh; Dargis, Manohla (July 21, 2023). "'Barbenheimer' and a Film Critic's Perspective, in Review". The New York Times. Archived from the original on July 21, 2023. Retrieved July 21, 2023.
• Pulliam-Moore, Charles (July 11, 2023). "Barbenheimer is just the beginning of this year's summer blockbuster season". The Verge. Archived from the original on July 17, 2023. Retrieved July 11, 2023.

External links

• The dictionary definition of barbenheimer at Wiktionary

• 2023 in American cinema
• 2023 neologisms
• Advertising campaigns
• Barbie
• Black comedy
• Christopher Nolan
• Comparisons
• Cultural depictions of J. Robert Oppenheimer
• Film and television memes
• Greta Gerwig
• Internet memes introduced in 2023
• July 2023 events
• Portmanteaus
• Viral marketing