How did it feel to give into the zeitgeist and make this a Barbenheimer weekend?
It. Felt. Great.
That is because in great part it reminded me of how I spent my 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s and beyond – indulging in the group anticipation and excitement of seeing movies, at a movie theatre, with a whole lot of other people, the very first weekend they opened.
If Barbie and Oppenheimer initially felt like a strange cinema pairing in that regard, well, they were.
What does a cotton candy-world take on women, all bathed in day glow pink and bursting with MTV video song stylings, have in common with a dense, three-hour science for dummies biopic over multiple timelines about the man who spearheaded the invention and building of the first atomic bomb that officially ended WWII?
Well, mega box-office success, for one thing.
Together both films grossed more than HALF A BILLION DOLLARS (Note: $511 million, to be exact) this weekend at the box-office worldwide.
And included in that number is $235.5 million domestically, which in itself is a record.
It’s hard to explain just how good those numbers are, especially in a post-pandemic, or, well, any world.
But consider this:
Never before have TWO Hollywood films EVER opened in the US and Canada to such huge numbers in the SAME weekend. Meaning Barbie took in $155 million and Oppenheimer posted $80.5 million in just a handful of days in North America.
And the summer is not even half over.
So much for phrases like top tier theatrical films are not worth the risk and there is just not enough room for everyone.
And all kinds of other words passed off as common wisdom these days.
Oh, hi AMPTP.
Just look out your window any day this week and you’ll see us writers and actors still on the picket line trying to get your attention for a fair deal so the rest of us can make you even more money.
That is, if you’re interested in doing it this way anymore.
It took the talents of two A list artistic type writer-directors, Greta Gerwig and Christopher Nolan, to steer the ship on two projects that on paper didn’t scream instant hit.
Because let’s face it – Universal first made a deal with Mattel for the rights to make a movie about Barbie in 2009 and the non-fiction book chronicling the life of Robert J. Oppenheimer came out in 2004.
Yeah, Ms. Gerwig and Mr. Nolan have each had hit films but they are also considered to be filmmakers who lead with integrity and artistic vision, qualities that are barely tolerated by the bottom line corporate overlords running most of the platforms out there these days.
Why grant them carte blanche on such tricky projects when we could just do another… sequel… or reboot…. or prequel…. or….. anything but something this risky?
The irony is that both writer-directors cut their teeth in the independent film world, he as a gritty 8mm filmmaker and she originally as a left of center young actress – the kind of backgrounds A.I. aspiring ceo’s are doing their best to eliminate from their preferred class of future creators if they had their way.
Which is not to say that this strategy will work out the way they intend, if this weekend is any indication.
I had two diametrically different moviegoing experiences at theatres showing both films this weekend and each audience seemed anywhere from happy to thrilled to blown away with what they were viewing.
On Saturday night I was a guest at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ 1000 plus seat Samuel Goldwyn Theatre for a screening of Oppenheimer. Anticipating a crowd, we arrived almost an hour early only to be met with several lines that snaked around the block in order to get in.
That is unusual for many reasons.
But mostly because the famous and not so famous Academy members and their guests were so excited they actually got there that early and queued up to ensure they and at least one friend would be guaranteed a seat.
Once the 70 mm print was announced inside to applause there was then three hours of rapt attention to the screen, the sound, the images, the actors and what I can only categorize (Note: No spoilers here) as a master filmmaker at his best.
By the time the movie was done and we were released back into the real world it was clear an audience of industryites agreed, some by enthusiastic applause and others by stunned silence, over just how thoroughly they had been transported.
Yet the next evening, at a long-standing public movie theatre in Westwood that seldom sells out but did so this night, I watched the cultural phenomenon known as Barbie.
Teenage girls with their friends, straight boy college guys with their friends, moms and dads with grade school kids hugging blankets in tow, mothers and daughters in matching pink daisy hair clips; a thirty-something woman with her grandmother, and many many couples – hetero, gay, non-binary and yes, even platonic. White, black, brown and many other colors.
In the movie business they used to call this a four-quadrant audience.
Nowadays, in big blue cities, we simply refer to it as life.
Interestingly, while what’s onscreen narratively in the Barbie movie is an exaggerated view of life, the ages, races and ethnicities of its characters were pretty reflective of the wide swath of real live people watching its story unfold in that theatre in Westwood.
Like Christopher Nolan, Greta Gerwig knows how to wow her audience and engage her audience. Their strategies may be totally different but the results are in the numbers and the inevitable awards attention both films will receive.
Far be it for any of us to put a value on either other than to conclude that there is room for both them.
And many more than that.
notes from a chair 