Barbenheimer shatters already sky-high expectations as the duo interjects life into a sleepy summer.
The summer of 2023 had been going down as a rather quiet one, box office-wise. Maybe audiences were getting tired of all the sequels (The Little Mermaid is the only non-franchise cog to top the box office all summer), though the originals (which included Elemental, No Hard Feelings, and Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken) hadn't exactly set the box office on fire either. Or maybe they were just waiting for living dolls and nuclear bombs.
Beating already lofty predictions, Barbie exploded into theaters this weekend, earning a whopping $162 million, grabbing the year's biggest opening away from The Super Mario Bros. Movie, and arriving with the best opening weekend since Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. That number is the best opening for a non-sequel since The Lion King in 2019. And indeed, its the best opening ever for a film that's not a franchise cog or a remake. With nearly-unanimous reviews and delighted audiences (outside of a few sour conservatives) from coast to coast, Barbie seems destined to join Mario at the top of the 2023 chart. There's a long way to go, and a lot of movies still to come out, but if Barbie and Mario do end up being the year's two biggest grossers, it will be the first time since 2001 that neither of the top two were franchise titles. That said, both Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring launched mighty franchises, something that Warners and Universal would love very much from Barbie and Mario.
Speaking of exploding, Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan's three-hour biopic of the physicist who was largely responsible for the development of the atomic bomb, opened itself to an eye-popping $82.5 million. In terms of serious, R-rated dramas, the only two films to open better were American Sniper and The Passion of the Christ, and both of those films are significantly shorter than Oppenheimer. Nolan continues to prove himself the king of July serious movies, as both Dunkirk and Inception also made a fortune opening in the same spot on the calandar. Oppenheimer seems likely to exceed $200 million and might even be heading for $300 million. It will also almost certainly earn a high number of Oscar nominations come next January.
For the first time since October, the top three films of the weekend were all originals. Coming in third is the sleeper smash of the summer, Sound of Freedom, a film that conservative audiences could embrace without all that pink-clad feminism or possible guilt about Hiroshima. The action thriller (which, to be fair, is largely a straight-ahead action movie and doesn't really contain any of the more controversial messages that both its supporters and detractors seem eager to assign to it) made another $19.8 million and brought its total to $124.4 million. A final gross of over $200 million is pretty far off, but with the film's legs so far, its certainly not out of the question (and if it does gets close, expect some of the movie's famous fans to just buy up a whole bunch of tickets to push it over the top).
Freedom was a surprise #3, as no one was expecting it to knock last week's champ, Mission: Impossible-Dead Reckoning Part One all the way down to #4. Tom Cruise's latest stunt-heavy thriller was badly hurt by losing all of its IMAX screens to Oppenheimer, as the film slumped to $19.4 million, for a twelve-day gross of $118.6 million. Suddenly, it has fallen off the pace of both Rogue Nation and Fallout, and is in danger of not even hitting the $180 million that the first film made back in 1996. Assuming the dueling strikes get settled by this fall, we should see Part Two next summer, but if it doesn't do better than the first one, that might be it for the Mission: Impossible films for a while.
Speaking of franchises that probably shouldn't have been revived, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny continues to chug along, bringing in $6.7 million for a total of $159 million. It should at least make it past Temple of Doom in the coming weeks.
Insidious: The Red Door is fading faster than Sony would like, but the film will still be nicely profitable, as it brought in another $6.6 million for a total of $71.1 million. It should pass Insidious Chapter 2 in the next week or two to become the highest grosser of the series.
Both Elemental and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse have a few more weeks before kids start going back to school en masse. The Pixar title brought in another $5.7 million for a total of $137.2 million and Spidey earned $375.3 million for a total of $375.3 million.
Rounding out the Top Ten, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts picked up $1.1 million for a total of $155.7 million and No Hard Feelings earned $1.1 million for a total of $49.2 million.
Barbenheimer is expected to dominate the box office again this weekend, but two new movies are hoping to snag the third spot. Haunted Mansion is Disney's second attempt in two decades (after 2003's ill-fated Eddie Murphy vehicle) to turn its iconic Disneyland attraction into a hit movie. Rosario Dawson plays the titular mansion's unfortunate new owner, while LaKeith Stanfield, Tiffany Haddish, Owen Wilson, and Danny DeVito play some of the various haunted house experts she brings in to help bust the inhabitants. Reviews aren't much better than the Murphy version. Meanwhile, in non-Disney-approved horror, there's Talk to Me, about a group of friends who figure out how to communicate with the dead, with predictably disastrous results. Unlike Haunted Mansion, this one is getting strong reviews and could be a sleeper in a summer that, outside of Insidious and Boogeyman, hasn't seen much scary. Will Haunted Mansion scare away the competitors? Could Talk to Me chat its way to the top? Could Oppenheimer drop a bomb on the competition? Or will America say once again "Come on Barbie, lets go party?". We'll find out next week.
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