Barbie And Oppenheimer Are CRUSHING IT At The Box Office…With A Catch

Their fates were always going to be intertwined, but their outcomes have been polar opposites. Barbie and Oppenheimer are the two hottest movies of the summer thus far and have been crushing it at the box office, yet the two have had very different reactions from the fans.

We must have switched over to an alternate reality a few years ago when a movie about a Barbie doll and a 20th century nuclear scientist generates more hype and revenue than Mission Impossible and Indiana Jones.

In no great surprise give how interlocked the two films have become during their marketing campaigns, Barbie and Oppenheimer have exploded into being the two biggest movies of the summer and have generated half a billion dollars in box office revenue in under three days. Yet, despite being beloved by critics, these two films have had far different trajectories with fans.

Now, it really shouldn’t come as a shocker that Barbie, a movie marketed to the billions of young girls around the world, has been doing better at the box office than Oppenheimer, a movie about a little-known (apart from scientists and history buffs) and the development of the Manhattan Project (another historical event that is sadly unknown to so many people despite its momentous impact on the world), with Barbie grossing $337M from the worldwide box office ($155M domestic) in just three days.

And, as I said, this was just expected as a film starting Margot Robbie as Barbie, Ryan Gosling as Ken, and being about Mattel’s most beloved Barbie doll was bound to make a billion dollars if it was done reasonably well…which is debatable to say the least. But I’ll get back to that in a second.

As for Oppenheimer, even though it’s trailing behind Barbie, it’s not doing too bad for itself either as it has made $174M from the worldwide box office ($80.5M domestic), while the film has been sparking tons of interest from fans about the legendary scientists and Academy Award buzz for Cillian Murphy (J. Robert Oppenheimer’s actor).

Moreover, the film’s $80.5M domestic weekend opening is the third highest in director Christopher Nolan’s legendary career as Oppenheimer only trails The Dark Knight (2nd highest, $158.4M) and The Dark Knight Rises (1st highest, $160.9M) in gross domestic box office openings.

That’s pretty great when you consider Nolan has also directed films like Batman Begins (the first film in The Dark Knight trilogy), Inception, Dunkirk, Insomnia, and Interstellar.

Anyways, as I hinted at earlier, the box office success of these films doesn’t tell the whole story of how these movies have been viewed by audiences as Barbie has actually suffered from some pretty poor fan reviews.

It’s no surprise the usual media figureheads have gobbled up and raved over the film as what else did you expect from them, but us fans currently have Barbie at a 73% on Rotten Tomatoes (All Audiences Score, not the bot Verified Audience Score), a 7.0/10 unweighted mean score on IMDb, and a 5.5/10 on Metacritic.

That’s…concerning when you also consider how ravenous the reviews have been online for this film. You either see people praising this thing as a true masterpiece in woman empowerment, or you see them destroying this as feminist propaganda that only cares to destroy a young girl’s morality and view of motherhood. Pretty polarizing stuff.

Since I haven’t seen the film myself, I’m not going to cast judgement on it yet as that would be wrong of me. So, I’ll let these reviews stand for themselves.

As for Oppenheimer, a film I have seen, this movie most definitely deserves all the praise, hype, attention, and great reviews it has received from critics and fans alike.

Unlike Barbie, the critics and general public are united on how great this film is as it currently stands with a 94% certified fresh critic score on Rotten Tomatoes, a 91% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, a 9.0/10 unweighted score on IMDb, and a 9.0/10 Metacritic score with a “Metacritic Must See” sticker.

And I wholeheartedly agree with the fans and critics on this film as its simply a magnificent tale on the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the terror over the Nazis and Axis Powers developing the nuclear bomb before the US and Allied Powers, and the dangers and destruction a weapon like the nuclear bomb presents to humanity and civilization.

The visual effects and cinematography were top notch, Christopher Nolan’s decision to direct the movie in “first person” with Oppenheimer as the lead protagonist was a brilliant choice, and the entire ensemble of A-list actors all played their parts to the best of their talents. But Cillian Murphy’s portrayal of Oppenheimer was easily the best aspect of this movie.

I won’t ruin the story for those who haven’t seen the film yet, but Murphy captured the troubles, burdens, and hardships you see in Oppenheimer’s eyes (in his real-life interviews) over his guilt about developing such a destructive weapon through his performance to perfection. He is going to win the Academy Award for Best Actor for the role. It’s a forgone conclussion.

Nevertheless, it’s truly quite remarkable how two polar opposite, non-franchise films can gather an equal amount of box office success and attention in a cinema world dominated by franchise films.

Images Source: Featured Image: (Universal Pictures) (Oppenheimer | Official Trailer – YouTube)

In Text Image 1: (Warner Bros. Discovery) (Barbie | Main Trailer – YouTube)

In Text Image 2: (Universal Pictures) (Oppenheimer | Official Trailer – YouTube)