I tried to go see Barbenheimer this weekend but I didn’t see the Barb or the Heimer. And it wasn’t my fault! I have been going to the movies for the past 3 years and the rule that has always worked for me is that if I go before noon, all the theaters are empty.
That wasn’t the case on Friday. When I arrived at the Grove – at 9:30 am mind you! – I saw a wave of pink. It was as if I was on some boat in the middle of a cotton candy ocean during a glitter-stoked hurricane.
There were a total of 4 seats in the first three Barbie showings and they were all that seat in the front of the theater all the way on the right.
So I said, “Okay, no problem. I’ll just see Oppenheimer.” But then, to my utter confusion, all the Oppenheimer showings were sold out as well! What the heck is going on here, I said out loud to myself, to which a nearby glob of hot pink-clad men responded, “Okay Barbie, he’s not invited to the party.”
Through my deductive skills, I arrived at the theory that families had come to the multiplex and split in two distinct directions the second they neared the concession stand. The women headed to Barbie and the men went off to see Oppenheimer. Which left me out of the movie loop for the weekend because I’d already had plans for Saturday and Sunday.
So what I think I’m going to do is go and see Oppenheimer tomorrow and write a review for Tuesday. It shouldn’t be hard to get a ticket for a historical biopic on a Monday morning, should it? The Barbenheimer train can’t possibly have that much steam.
Strangely enough, I’m okay with this delay. It just builds up the anticipation even more. We don’t get to feel anticipation for films like we used to. These days it’s superheroes all the way down and their promotional campaigns are all so orchestrated and predictable that we know exactly what we’re getting by the time we walk into the theater.
Oppenheimer’s and Barbie’s campaigns harken back to the days when Hollywood still left some mystery on the table as to what you were going to see. The reason for that is that all of Hollywood’s market research up to this point has told them that audiences are more likely to show up if they know exactly what’s going to happen in a movie.
Director Robert Zemeckis used to get a lot of flak for this because he began the trend of showing you the entire movie in the trailer. And when people complained about it, he said, “Sorry, this is what the research tells us. That you guys want to know what’s going to happen ahead of time.” And so every other marketing campaign started doing the same thing.
But the reality is, every movie is different and should approach its marketing campaign differently because some movies benefit from a sense of mystery. I’ll never EVER forget the marketing campaign for Cloverfield. That trailer showed up out of nowhere with nobody knowing it was coming and then there was no other information about the movie until it came out. Surprise surprise, it became this huge unexpected hit. There need to be more creative people on the marketing side who think like this in 2023. And Oppenheimer and Barbie prove that a few still do.
Cause I think a HUGE reason these movies both did so well was that each had a curiosity factor to them.
Plus, whoever made the decision to tell Nolan to take the giant pole out of his a$$ needs their own Academy award. The “got Nolan to take a pole out of his a$$” Oscar. This genius idea to pair Nolan with a Robert Downey Jr. who just drank 14 cups of coffee did something I thought impossible – make Nolan look like a fun guy.
Nolan is so far up his own butt when he talks about movies that he’s become a parody of an auteur and it doesn’t help when he makes sweeping mistakes in his films, mainly on the screenwriting side. The guy is still working towards building the most exposition-heavy library of films of all time. And I’m assuming this film is only going to add to that Guiness book of world records.
So when you think you’re the bee’s knees yet you’re inundating us with second-rate pollen, we’re not going to be as tolerant of your “I am the arbiter of cinema” persona.
But watching Nolan desperately try not to laugh at everything Robert Downey said but being unable was so endearing that it made me see him in a whole new light.
I think Nolan studies not just how to make great movies but also how to be perceived as an all-time great artist. He’s, no doubt, studied the way people like Alfred Hitchcock talked to the media and the way Stanley Kubrick created an aura around him. Everybody knows how Kubrick used to say to his lead actors that when the press tour came around, he would tell them how amazing the actor was if the actor went out called him the greatest director he had ever worked with.
Relating this all back to this weekend, what does the 155 million dollar take of Barbie and the 80 million dollar take of Oppenheimer mean?
If every box office tells a story, this one is telling studios that the days of superheroes ruling the box office are over. I’m not saying no superhero movie will ever do well again. But Marvel so oversaturated the market that it’s impossible for anything other than one or two superhero movies to break out during the year. Cause we’re tired of them.
So much so that we’d rather show up for a plastic doll and a 3 hour talky period piece about one of the most depressing subjects of the last century.
Marvel did this to themselves. They drank so much of their own kool-aid that they thought we’d like shows like the 200 million dollar Secret Invasion, a Marvel misfire that’s been so badly received, it will alter the way Marvel shows are greenlit moving forward.
But seriously. The way these two movies are being received by audiences is screaming to studios, “We want something different!” Are those studios going to listen? History has told us, no, they aren’t. Hollywood is terrified of moving away from proven models. They get very nervous in times like these where they’ve been unable to predict how a movie would do.
Just a few weeks ago, Barbie was being projected for a 60 million dollar weekend and Oppenheimer for a 45 million dollar weekend. It was only because of early ticket sales that those numbers went up. Not because Hollywood figured that out on their own. Which means they were nowhere close to understanding how well these movies would perform.
Which isn’t supposed to happen, by the way. Hollywood has invested hundreds of millions of dollars into being able to gauge what a movie’s return will be. If they’re off by even 20 million bucks on that opening weekend, it shines a light on the fact that they’re not good at their jobs. But being off by 100 million dollars? That means they’re utterly clueless.
I’d make the case that this is the most important box office story of the last five years. Movies like this aren’t supposed to perform better than Marvel movies. They aren’t even supposed to perform better than Mission Impossible movies. And throw Sound of Freedom in there as well. When a small conservative-leaning film is beating out a 400 million dollar film on certain weekends, Hollywood has lost the thread in regards to what audiences really want.
I’m supportive of this change. Even if it means more big-budget biopics during the year. Because you’re not going to get people out into the theater without some variety. Barbenheimer proved that this weekend.
