Weekend Box Office: Barbenheimer does it again

As expected, Barbie remained on top of the box office for a second week in a row with an impressively small drop off of just 43% for a second week take of $93 million and a domestic total of $351.4 million. Add that to its massive global take and you have a movie that in just two weeks has already amassed over $700 million. While it won’t crack the record for fastest movie to reach a billion dollars globally, that record belongs to Avengers: Endgame at just 5 days, it will undoubtedly cross that magical milestone that only 52 other movies have ever crossed within the next week and change. If Top Gun: Maverick saved movie theaters last year, Barbie is surely making sure they keep their lights on this year. 

Once that first trailer hit for Barbie, we all pretty much knew it was destined to be a hit. Even though the trailer for Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer looked amazing, when it was announced the film was clocking in at three hours long and rated R, a lot of us became worried that Nolan’s latest may be the type of film that not many people would be willing to sit through, no matter how good it was. Well, the hype of Barbenheimer surely helped it secure a strong opening weekend, but this week shows that the movie has true legs as it dropped a small 44% with an estimated take of $46.2 million and a solid $174 million domestic total. Audiences are embracing a film that demands the big screen experience. That is what Christopher Nolan does, he makes sure anything he puts out has a feel to it that it must be experienced, not just seen. That is why people are willing to get out to theaters and see his movies instead of waiting for home video/ streaming.

The same can not be said for Disney, who have pivoted to embracing their streaming service above all else. This is the reason the mouse house has had trouble with their films finding audiences in theaters. The latest victim of that is their update of the Haunted Mansion which only managed a $24.2 million opening. Perhaps if the movie had received better reviews, more people would have gone out of their way to see this one in theaters, but sadly this one was just a very mediocre movie that audiences seem to realize they can watch on Disney+ in time for Halloween. I do like streaming, I really do, but we are in this weird period right now where studios don’t know how to make their theatrical releases and their streaming services work with each other and until they figure it out, as Disney seems to be finding out week after week, audiences will simply wait it out. Im not sure a box office bomb is the best marketing plan for a movies streaming debut! You can check out Chris Bumbray’s 5/10 review here.

Fourth place belongs to the Jim Caviezel starring Sound of Freedom which continues it insanely successful independent release losing just 37% for a $12.4 million weekend take. That number is actually almost $2 million more than Mission: Impossible- Dead Reckoning Part One landed with this weekend. I don’t think anybody had Jim Caviezel coming out victorious in the box office battle between him and Tom Cruise! You can check out Chris Bumbray’s 6/10 Sound of Freedom review here.

In sixth place is the new A24 horror film Talk To Me which doubled its budget in just its opening weekend with slightly over $10 million. It is a rare thing when it is the actual studio that gets people hyped for a movie, but I think A24 has earned their reputation as a company that releases quality entertainment. How else to explain that they became the first studio ever to have their films sweep the top six awards at the Oscars.

Spots seven through nine go to your holdover films: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny with $4 million added to its $167 million domestic total; Elemental with $3.4 million added to its $144.9 million total and Insidious: The Red Door with $3.1 million added to its $78 million total. While tenth place lands the Bollywood release Rocky Air Rani Kii Prep Kahaani with $1.3 million. As I have said before, these Hindi language films have their passionate audiences who will seek out the new releases and turn them into hits.

Did you make it to theaters this weekend? How many times have you seen Barbie and Oppenheimer so far (its two times each for me)? Let us know in the comments and don’t forget to check out our weekly poll where we ask: What is your favorite Margot Robbie film?