Box Office: ‘Barbie’ Takes Off with $22.3M in Previews, ‘Oppenheimer’ Takes in $10.5M

Barbie earned a whopping $22.3 million in box office previews, the best showing of summer 2023.

This is ahead of May’s tentpole Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3which grossed $17.5 million in previews, as well as Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse ($17.4 million).

Preview sets Barbie on track to open up to $110 million domestically, if not more. That’s a huge sum for a women’s event film. It would also be one of the best openings of the summer season. Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling are the protagonists of the film directed by Greta Gerwig.

Barbie goes against that of Christopher Nolan Oppenheimer in what is billed as Barbenheimer.

Nolan’s film is set to open to $49 million, says a source with access to the tracking data (Universal is hoping for $40 million or more). The three-hour film chronicles the career of J. Robert Oppenheimer, considered the father of the atomic bomb. Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt and Matt Damon lead the stellar cast.

Oppenheimer it made a whopping $10.5 million in Thursday previews. This is also one of the best showings of the summer and is ahead of previews for Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One.

No one could have predicted it Barbie AND Oppenheimer would be the focus of this summer’s most interesting showdown at the multiplex, considering they couldn’t be more different in tone and scope.

The summer box office could use a lift after several big-budget busts, including The flash (Warner Bros./DC Studios), Elementary (Disney/Pixar) e Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (Disney/Lucas movies). And last weekend, Tom Cruise starred Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning, part one it failed to track projections when it posted a $78.5 million five-day debut, compared to the more than $90 million it had been tracking to earn.

And there’s more.