It’s a Barbie World; Oppenheimer Maxes IMAX; Mission: Impossible Falls Out; Haunted Mansion Foreclosed - Weeks 11, 12, and 13

While it’s an easy news segment to talk about all the ills of social media, can we at least agree it did some good this last month? Barbenheimer/OppenBarbie became the most talked about movie weekend of the year and it was the kick-in-the-pants this summer season needed after a series of ho-hum openings. 

Barbie blew the Dream House roof off with a $162 million opening weekend. This was the largest opening ever for a non-sequel, remake, or superhero property. It also became the largest debut by a female director (Sacramento’s own, Greta Gerwig!), best opening ever for a toy-property (take that, Transformers!), and the pinkest movie in the history of pink (red and white, take a bow!). 

Another accolade? The biggest “Second Weekend” in Warners Bros. history as the film delivered another $93 million with a remarkably normalized 42% drop. I wasn’t able to see the film until the second weekend and the packed theater still had an energy usually only felt during opening weekends. Suffice to say, Barbie’s nearly already “won” the summer pool after only 10 days. It’s at $351.4 million with zero signs of slowing down. 

Only Christopher Nolan can make a historical biopic a “must-see” summer movie. Oppenheimer, uh, exploded with a $82 million start. Yup, more people were excited to watch a movie about a theoretical physicist than Dom Toretto, Optimus Prime, Indiana Jones, Ethan Hunt, and The Flash. This was an even larger debut than his last historical summer offering, Dunkirk, which started with $50 million on its way to a $189 million total.   

While Oppenheimer hasn’t sold as many tickets as Barbie, the interesting thing is in the price of the Oppenheimer tickets. Many of the seats sold are for the higher-priced IMAX (and even some 70MM screenings), making this a destination movie experience. The IMAX showings were still all full in its second weekend at my local AMC even with seats available at non-IMAX showings. The “filmed in IMAX” hype is working for this film and people are willing to wait to see it on IMAX instead of “let’s just go catch it right now.” Now, would that same strategy work if Encinco Man was filmed in IMAX, probably not. 

Ethan Hunt found his toughest mission was staying relevant after his “last” film seemed like the conclusion to the series. 2018’s Mission: Impossible - Fallout grossed $220 million and felt like a wrap for these characters. Five years later, people didn’t seem to care as much about the Impossible Missions Force. These days folks only want to see Tom Cruise flying planes, not jumping off cliffs trying to catch trains.

Mission: Impossible - Dead Recocking Part One had a five-day opening of $78 million in its first week, yet it had a “dead” second weekend dropping 65% with only $19 million after the BarbenHeimer radioactive cloud destroyed every film in their path. The film currently has $131.9 million and has no chance of being a Top Five film this summer. Given the positive reviews and audience scores, I wouldn’t have pegged this flick to be a low point for the series. That said, this looks to be the lowest performing film in the series since M:I-III. Maybe the message finally self-destructed the audience? 

In the “I didn’t even know this movie was coming out until I saw a cardboard standup at my theater two months ago” category, I present to you Haunted Mansion. Opening with a completely forgettable $24 million, it looks like everyone forgot this movie was coming out. Disney has got to figure out some way to distinguish what’s a Disney+ movie and what’s a theatrical release, because until I saw an “opening in theaters” on that cutout I’d have assumed it was a Disney+ movie… and I guess it will be, just in time for Halloween!

After the Mid-July Surprise of Barbie and Oppenheimer, I do think we’ve got our final five films. It’s just a matter of where they all land. Let’s take a look at where we are now… 

 

The Top Five If Today Was Labor Day:

#1. Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse - $378.8 million

#2. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 - $359 million

#3. Barbie - $351.4

#4. The Little Mermaid - $296.9 million

#5. Oppenheimer - $174.6 million