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‘Barbie’ reaches US$1 billion box office sales globally; 'Oppenheimer' is the biggest World War II pic of all time at US$552.9 million
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- Title
- Box Office: 'Barbie' Crosses $1B Globally, 'Meg 2' and 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' Add to Barbenheimer Bloom
- Authors
- Pamela McClintock
- Published
- Aug 6 2023
- Word count
- 433 words
I hope Hollywood learns from the success of these two movies that original films made by motivated people with clear visions are something audiences are craving against the deluge of sequels and superhero movies. I've seen this posted elsewhere, but I hope the lesson they don't learn is to try and astroturf double features like CaptainMidnight talks about here: https://youtu.be/ICY8NMWIRwQ?si=7h3taaIoiRvu6Zql
Considering that Mattel, given their IP catalogue, is probably seeing dollar signs in their eyes, I am not hopeful of this.
There's genuinely one title I want to see a sequel of. Dredd 2012. That movie was flawless, though I do get why it bombed.
Oppenheimer was absolutely phenomenal in cinema. It felt like a real reason to head back to those pre-Covid times and enjoy overpriced snacks for sheer storytelling. I adored it.
It certainly says something about the way the market has shifted in the modern era that WWII films, which used to be really common tentpole movies, aren't anywhere in the list of highest grossing movies of all time. Like, the fact that the highest grossing WWII movie of all time wasn't even the highest grossing movie released that day is pretty shocking to me.
I had to do a double take. Turns out Saving Private Ryan for example did something like $480 million at the box office which surprised me. Now, Ryan came out over two decades ago, so inflation bites into the comparison, but I think your overall point still stands. Hollywood is chasing those huge $1 billion returns in heavily marketed blockbusters rather than being satisfied with only "middling" successes of yesteryear.
Oh yeah, for sure, I guess the real thing here is that WWII movies basically just vanished somewhere in the 2000s/2010s, and almost all of the highest grossing movies are from the last ten years, because that's when studios shifted to the billion dollar return model you mention. Like I guess my point is just that if you just peek the Wikipedia highest grossing movies list, it's pretty shocking that there isn't a single (as far as I can tell) WWII movie on there (or even stranger, a single historical war movie, I'm pretty sure???) given just how reliable a cash cow WWII used to be for Hollywood. A lot of that is obviously inflation and a lot of that is that Hollywood has changed its model but the premise of each of those arguments is that studios haven't been making WWII tentpoles either since before the entire film market changed in the 2010s or since long enough ago that inflation is relevant, which probably shouldn't be surprising to me but somehow still is.
I know nothing about film industries, but maybe the issue is simply that the supply of ideas for original films and motivated people who want to make them is very limited? Maybe Hollywood would love to make only masterpieces, but they only get so many truely great scripts and tons of mediocre ones. Maybe they make so many mediocre movies because they still turn a profit on average, and the alternative would to do nothing until the next genius turns up.
I would argue the issue is that Hollywood no longer wants to take risks in filmmaking. They're sticking to the adage of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." All the Marvel and other superhero movies? We've had such a deluge of them because they WERE working for a quite a while. But it seems that this cash cow is finally running dry.
Also, I can't speak for Oppenheimer, but remember that Barbie still is part of the much larger Mattel franchise. Sure, they don't WANT to lose money, but it probably was within calculated risk- and then someone made a very effective marketing decision that actually had nothing to do with the "Barbenheimer" phenomenon.
Side note: I do personally think Hollywood needs to take a handful more of risks in making new movie ideas (though as you point out, whether there are any new ideas that might be decent is a good question). I'm reminded of this: way back when the live-action of Sleeping Beauty came out- called Malificent- I absolutely HATED it for a variety of reasons. Suffice to say, some of the changes they made to the story as I knew it (via the original Disney animation) I was not a fan of. Fast forward a few years, and they made a sequel focusing even more on Malificent that was a very original take on her story. Ignoring that the first 20~30 minutes was a stereotypical Chick Flick sequence... once it got into some original fantasy ideas, I actually enjoyed it more than the first movie.
I don't think Hollywood is happy making smaller movies even if making their money back and/or a profit is easier. "Why?" you may ask. I believe something not often talked about is because the whole system is designed around middle men all
leachingtaking their cut. In other words, the famous "Hollywood Math" strikes again.I think horror films are a good microcosm to look at since part of the reason that they make so many horror films is because they are cheap. Minimal risk and when they hit BIG, the studio wings BIG, right?
A few searches shows that the Saw movie budgets vs returns and how much money they cost vs made. Also note that the budget increased rather dramatically at times-- 1.2 million for the first one, then $5 million for the 2nd all the way to $20 million for Spira). (I was kind of shocked when they made quite a few of the movies for around the $10 million dollar mark)
Jordan Peele's movies: $4.5 million for "Get Out", $20 million for "Us", $68 million for "Nope"
The Blair Witch franchise: $35-60k for Blair Witch Project, $5 million for Blair Witch and $15 million for BW2. (Wikipedia listed BWP as between $200-750k after "post production edits" after it was shot for $35-60k which I think helps prove my point)
As you can see the budgets get significantly more expensive while the returns (typically) don't keep pace. However, the "system" overall derives huge paydays out of the frachise before the newest move is already released.
Avengers: Endgame was something like a $356 million bludget plus an additional $200 million for marketing. I can only imagine how many
leachesmiddle men added their billable hours for negligable input..That’s a grounded sentiment, but I’m skeptical. It seems in the times of yore a great many pretty awesome movies were regularly made. That said, it’s easy to be myopic when looking across expanses of time.
I'm not buying that without some hard data. It's much too easy to mush 50 years of movie making into "the times of yore" and compare them to the most recent five or ten years.
Also, it's very unlikely you see 50 year old crap movies because those haven't left the archive in 45 years. Good movies, on the other hand, are shown regularly again and again, regardless of the year they were made. In 20 years, we will still rewatch the masterpieces the 1960s, 2000s and 2020s and lament the downfall of then-today's film industry.
I'll try to find some numbers for you, but if you tabulate the most successful movies by year, there is a significant drop off in original works in favor of sequels, established IP, or remakes over the past few decades.
That would be interesting, thank you.
But, assuming this is correct, that doesn't answer the question why they make more sequels. Is it because they turn down more original scripts or because there are less original scripts?
It's certainly true that there's no mathematical script to produce great movies that merely requires you throw money at it, but part of the necrosis in modern Hollywood is the ballooning budgets of modern films which siphon up all the available money. Rather than splitting up budgets into making more smaller films, studios are pouring more and more money into fewer very expensive films. For the price of the Flash movie (which is one of the bigger bombs in box office memory) you could have almost funded both Barbie and Oppenheimer.
But they DID fund both Barbie and Oppenheimer.
I don't think money is the issue. Studios have been wasting money on really bad films for probably all of film history. And I don't mean films that are bad because they are cash cows. I'm talking about genuinely uninteresting movies nobody ever heard of, like The Huntress: Rune of the Dead or Voices. Similarly, Amazon and Netflix seem to throw money on every TV show idea, completely ignoring any quality aspects.
Why would they finance all that crap if they could invest it instead in something that makes headlines for months?
Years ago, I've seen an interview with a film producer, and he was asked if piracy was a problem for him. His answer was no, because movies are made if the right people want them to exist. If you have that, you find the money somewhere. Even the Yakuza have funded badass Yakuza movies, simply because they enjoy them.
I know Barbie is very loved character but do you think it could have made Billion dollar without 'Barbenheimer' trend and its message to society? I think WB did best at marketing and promoting stigma attached to it. Somehow people who didn't like this movie are being called incel and anti feminist.
I don't think it makes sense to ask whether it would have made as much money if it were an entirely different film. The message to society and stigma are reflected in the entire plot of the film.
The "Barbenheimer" marketing definitely will have helped, but then Avatar: The Way of Water made over $2 billion and wasn't nearly as enjoyable to watch, so who knows?
I agree with the other commenter expressing that the message to society and the plot are too tightly connected to really say. That being said, I had zero interest in Oppenheimer the movie, despite being interested in history. I had interest in Barbie despite not caring if it was a very feminist movie (as long as it wasn't reducing women).
For me, Barbie just represented a fun break from heaviness and had a great cast behind it. (I ended up not really enjoying the movie, but that's besides the point). Where I live, everyone is always sporting black, but I noticed even the vintage stores were putting their orange and pinks front and center. I went with a group and while we were slightly embarrassed, we enjoyed the theme.
Barbie has family-friendly appeal so it was always going to do well. I'm inclined to think Oppenheimer actually benefited much more.
Is there a reason for that or is it just a coincidence
Holy hell that title change is a mess, can one of you guys clean it up. Don’t know why it was changed so heavily, and you could have added the Oppenheimer stuff in a neater way.
I changed the title.
The original title was vague: "crosses a billion..." what? Dollars? Euros? Pounds? Tickets? If dollars, then which dollars? US? Canada? Australia? Hong Kong? That needed clarification, at the very least.
The article is about a lot more than just the Barbie movie. The news about 'Oppenheimer' being the highest-grossing WWII movie of all time is big news, but was entirely omitted from the title. People reading your title would not have realised there was more information hiding behind it.
I apologise for mis-typing "UD$552.9" instead of "US$552.9", but @mycketforvirrad picked that up and corrected it (thank you!).
P.S. As for the revised title being messy... you've posted a previous article with a similarly "messy" title. :)
Spot the difference.
My original title was just “Barbie crosses a billion globally.”
Oh, sorry, my original comment was referring to the miniscule change, which took me a minute to find, after you asked for an improvement.
You didn't really answer their question about why their original title was edited so heavily.
They aren't the one who edited the title, so they wouldn't know why.
Ah, my bad. I misunderstood the chain of events here. My apologies. I do question why it was edited so heavily though. While I can understand some minor edits, it doesn't feel great when mods make big changes.
Edit: I just realized there's a topic log in the side bar. That's handy.
you can't really compare a movie taking in a billion dollars of box office from consumer's money to the state spending money on literacy programs
I think the point is: imagine that people, instead of spending one billion dollars on movie tickets for a couple of hours' entertainment, donated that same money to social causes to improve people's lives.
Platitudes “Imagine if people didn’t buy x and instead were peaceful monks using their time and resources on things that matter.”
It’s just an empty thing to say that makes those that say it feel morally superior.
Imagine how miserable the world would be without any entertainment.
I agree and disagree to an extent. Society stands to benefit greatly if we shifted more of our discretionary spending to social causes. Certain social programs, like free school lunches, have outsized impact: yet Americans squabble over essentially giving up one Starbucks drink a month.
On the other hand, $1 bn isn’t very much for one of the hottest films and cultural landmarks of the decade, that will entertain tens of millions of people around the world. It’s Apple’s revenue every 3~4 days, and it’s how much money the US social security program alone goes through every 8 hours.
Is it somehow immoral to go to the theater for a few bucks and be entertained for a couple hours? Are you also as ascetic in your leisure activities of choice?
So in your view is all entertainment unjustified, because it could be spent on a more worthy cause? Or are there forms of entertainment that you partake in that you think are morally worthy?
Could you write up a chart of all the movies and games you think are morally acceptable for us to spend money on?
I notice that you're focusing on Barbie here and in your original comment. Do you consider the half billion that Oppenheimer has taken in to be a morally justifiable use of people's money? I'd like to believe that you're arguing in good faith, but reducing Barbie to being a movie "about a doll" makes me think that you aren't.
Besides, $1 Billion isn't all that much money when discussing the problems you're talking about on a global scale and there's nothing stopping someone from donating money to charity while still entertaining themselves.
If you don't want to see the movie, that's fine. Just don't act like the people that do are somehow inferior to you.
Imagine how much worse things would be if it were spent on coal power plants, fast fashion sweatshops, and tax cuts for large businesses.
Probably some cool stuff. Barbie was probably way more pink and fun though! We could do those other things and see Barbie.