‘Barbie’ & ‘Oppenheimer’ Fueling Mindblowing $300M+ Box Office Weekend – Saturday AM Update
https://deadline.com/2023/07/box-office-barbie-oppenheimer-barbenheimer-1235443828/
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Fair play. 'Barbenheimer' has been a marketing master stroke (No, I don't believe that happened organically). And a lot of cinemas are in desperate need of the ticket sales, so all good.
Barbie marketing is everywhere, inescapable, more than a Marvel movie.
shareThat's true too. But the specific social media based 'Barbenheimer' phenomenon has probably helped to market both films when opening on the same day could've been to their detriment. It's well-played.
shareOh, I know, although I'm not as sure that it wasn't more organic than you're implying. Just saying that the Barbie marketing blitz has been huge, much more than I would've expected, tie-ins everywhere (including store made Barbie cakes on a table in my supermarket where you first walk in, with a big Margot Robbie cardboard cutout behind it). I'd be curious as to how much they spent, if it is ever accurately divulged.
shareI'm always sceptical about these online things. Social media is so easily manipulated. You may be right though. I certainly have no evidence it wasn't organic. I just have my suspicions it started its life in a phone call between Warner Bros' and Universal's marketing departments.
But, yes, you're right: I can't think off the top of my head of the last time I saw a promotional blitz of quite this magnitude for a film. It does feel like a pre-internet, '90s-style marketing campaign. And I would guess if it works, we'll see more of 'em.
Who knows? Nolan was initially angry at his old home, WB, for releasing Barbie against Oppenheimer. So maybe there was a different motivation, since they're desperate to bring him back. Also, with two character centric films, and their names as titles, it's easy for an internet meme to take hold. Harder to conjoin Barbie and Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One, if those had been the two released on the same weekend. BarbImpossible doesn't quite have the same ring to it.
shareBarbReckoning.
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