By Anthony D'Alessandro
Editorial Director/Box Office Editor
It is quite conceivable that another near-$200M weekend is in store at the box office over the July 21-23 frame.
Warner Bros.’ comedic feature take on girl toy Barbie starring Margot Robbie in the title role and Ryan Gosling as Ken cruised onto tracking today, and hot would be a modest way of describing the box office outlook here. While Warners conservatively is saying $60M, tracking shows that Barbie is bigger than last month’s The Little Mermaid in pulling in general audiences and young women under 25. A weekend start of $80M minimum is what we’re hearing, and that too is a tampered-down expectation because Barbie on paper has all the glitz for a potential $100M start. Little Mermaid‘s 3-day over the Memorial Day holiday weekend was $95.5M.
Barbie’s sweet spot is under-35 females and secondarily 35- to 49-year-olds.
Also, Barbie presales at this point in time are pacing ahead of Little Mermaid. At the Wednesday before its opening Little Mermaid counted $19M in advance ticket sales before grossing a first Friday/previews day of $38.1M. Little Mermaid attracted 68% women and 61% between 18-34, with the largest demo being ages 25-34 at 35%.
Now Christopher Nolan’s three-hour movie about the architect of the atomic bomb, Oppenheimer, isn’t looking at leftovers. As one distribution insider describes its wattage, “It’s as much male and older as Barbie is female and younger.” We’re also hearing that one should not discount the female audience here in attending Oppenheimer, and under/over 25 both are strong too this ensemble pic starring Cillian Murphy in the title role, Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, Robert Downey Jr. and more.
A $40M-to-possible $50M opening is expected here, with the Universal movie having full control of Imax theaters for three weeks. Nolan’s Dunkirk opened to $50.5M and legged out to $189.7M in 2017. You’ll remember that Nolan’s previous film back in August 2020, Tenet, got shuttered theaters opened in the U.S. during Covid (except for LA, NYC and San Francisco) and posted a $20M 5-day gross over Labor Day weekend, including a pre-release in Canada; that film with its hands tied behind its back.
Filling out the rest of the near-$200M weekend over July 21-23 is the second weekend of Paramount’s Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One with around $35M. That’s looking at a franchise-best launch, and it wouldn’t be unheard-of if that movie does $100M in five days over July 12-16.
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