The biggest double bill of recent years is taking place at the UK-Ireland box office this weekend, as Warner Bros’ Barbie opens at the same time as Universal Pictures’ Oppenheimer.
Pre-booking figures signal ’Barbenheimer’ will be a shot of pure adrenalin for an exhibition sector still recovering from the 2020-2021 pandemic.
“Sales on both films are extremely good, but the numbers on Barbie are just phenomenal,” says Andrew Simpson, director of film programming at Newcastle’s Tyneside Cinema. “It will likely be the biggest opening we’ve had for a film since the pandemic, and that includes [2021 James Bond title] No Time To Die.”
The independent venue has upped its typical show count for both films, with up to five Oppenheimer screenings a day and up to six for Barbie. “We’ve been closely tracking sales figures for both titles, as well as spikes when marketing campaigns land, so we can respond to demand,” says Simpson.
This pre-booking success is replicated at the multiplexes. “We’re expecting this weekend to be our busiest in terms of admissions since pre-Covid,” says Stuart Crane, VP of film for Cineworld, the largest exhibitor in the territory with 128 cinemas. Crane noted many of the chain’s venues have sold out seven Barbie shows on Friday evening; with pre-sales for Oppenheimer out-performing Nolan’s previous film Dunkirk from 2019. “Oppenheimer Imax showings are nearly sold out, so we’ve already gone on sale with week two.”
Both Cineworld and Odeon are forecasting their busiest weeks since Avengers: Endgame opened to £43.4m in April 2019; with the latter predicting 1m admissions across the films’ first week at its venues. It has sold 200,000 tickets already, with 10,000 guests having booked for both films – the majority of them on the same day.
This is providing a welcome boost to the UK-Ireland market, which was 20% down on a pre-pandemic 2019 in 2022. Analytics firm Gower Street is projecting the weekend box office market to top £20m for the first time this year with both films ending in the top 10 for 2023 across their full runs.
“Even set against already high expectations, the positive response of the public to both films has surprised many cinema operators,” said Phil Clapp, chief executive of exhibitors membership organisation the UK Cinema Association.
Changing behaviours
Universal is opening Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer in 675 sites across around 1,700 screens – the widest opening of Nolan’s career, 5% up on the 642 of 2017’s Dunkirk. The studio did not provide a specific UK-Ireland prediction, but is looking at a $40-50m US debut; with $45m from international territories for a near-$100m global opening.
Greta Gerwig’s Barbie will open in 706 sites for Warner Bros – the fourth-widest opening of all time for the distributor.
The popularity of both titles can be seen in changing audience booking behaviours. London’s beloved Peckhamplex is usually a safe bet for a £4.99 walk-up ticket; but has sold out multiple screenings of Barbie on Friday evening through advance bookings alone.
Vue Cinemas, which has 91 UK-Ireland venues, has expanded its opening times “to near-record levels to deal with the huge demand for both titles,” according to Toby Bradon, general manager of Vue UK & Ireland. This has allowed Vue sites to programme up to 40 screenings of Barbie on Friday; the film is showing every 15 minutes between 6pm and 11pm at its Manchester Printworks venue. Hundreds of screenings have sold out already for the opening weekend, according to Bradon.
The buzz around the films has pushed Glasgow Film Theatre (GFT) to maintain its opening hours, which are usually reduced for the summer months. “The independent cinema landscape tends to be quiet over the summer,” says Paul Gallagher, programme manager at Glasgow Film. “We’re making exceptions for the opening weeks of these two films – we know there’ll be demand.”
Barbie has a one-hour 54-minute runtime, allowing most cinemas to fit it in more frequently than the three-hour Oppenheimer. The lengthy Nolan film has been no obstacle to the BFI Imax cinema, which is playing six screenings of the film per day across the opening weekend – essentially back-to-back, with time for trailers and turnaround between screenings.
The film has an exclusive three-week window at the central London venue; at the time of writing, 25 of the 34 screenings across the first week were sold out, in the 500-seat auditorium.
The BFI ran a programme of Nolan’s previous films in the weeks leading up to Oppenheimer, which has “really helped to build excitement and anticipation for seeing the film specifically at BFI Imax” according to Madeleine Mullett, BFI Imax programme manager. Mullett says the venue has customers travelling from around the world to see it on the UK-Ireland’s biggest cinema screen, with bookings from the US, Australia, Germany and India. “It feels like a shot in the arm for cinemas, which are still very much recovering from the pandemic,” said Mullett. The 70mm Imax print arrived from Universal last Friday, July 14; since when 28 hours of projectionist labour have been required to put together the 11-mile long film. “A big shout out to the BFI Imax teams who are putting in some serious shifts!” said Mullett.
Gü, Tango and cocktails
Commercial tie-ins abound for both films. Gü is providing a free dessert to all customers attending the opening night of Barbie at 30 cinemas through Pearl & Dean; while Vue has introduced a new candy floss flavour of the Tango Ice Blast drink, which is free for any customer who visits with someone whose name starts with Ken (Note: ID checks will be in place).
An extensive UK Oppenheimer marketing campaign kicked into gear with a 30-second spot during football’s Champions League final on June 10, and has included ad placements in coverage of major sporting events the British Grand Prix, Ashes and Women’s World Cup.
GFT is offering promotional cocktails for both films – a Dark and Stormy for Oppenheimer and a pink prosecco offering for Barbie. It is bucking the trend of playing the Warner Bros film more frequently, with three screenings per day of each title. This is partly due to it being the only cinema in Scotland playing the 70mm version of Oppenheimer, which will receive one screening per day in the 398-seat main screen. “Nolan does such a good job of communicating to his audience the way he wants them to see it,” says Gallagher, who says success for the venue would be “sold-out screenings across Friday and Saturday, hopefully Sunday as well.”
Barbenheimer poses a different challenge for independent venues, which must balance the popular releases with their regular arthouse fare.
“We have had to clear the space that we’d normally hold for holdovers,” says Joan Parsons, interim head of culture and arts at Queen’s University Belfast, which operates the city’s Queen’s Film Theatre. It has been “very challenging” to open both titles on the same day, but some nifty checkerboarding on the schedule has made space for both, plus other films including A.B. Zax’s documentary Hello, Bookstore.
Parsons is aiming for 3,000 admissions for each film across the run, which will last “as long as we can keep them.”
Gallagher has been conscious to offer different choices on GFT’s third screen. These include cycling documentary The Last Rider, to tie in with the Cycling World Championships starting in the city in August; and Mark Cousins’ My Name Is Alfred Hitchcock (Cousins has today tweeted his unhappiness at the market saturation of Barbie and Oppenheimer).
“I’m very aware that in playing these two films, we’re not offering an alternative to the mainstream,” says Gallagher. “It’s rare that we would go so far into the same sort of programme that the multiplexes are playing.”
The rising Barbenheimer tide is lifting all boats, he adds, with “more advance sales than you would usually see” for Australian horror Talk To Me, which comes out next Friday, July 28.
Barbenheimer is a positive moment for the exhibition sector, according to Clapp. “The levels of interest and advance bookings for both provide further concrete evidence that the cinema-going public remains as willing as ever to respond in huge numbers to original stories well-told, well-marketed and made for the big screen,” said the CEO.
Gallagher is hopeful that first-time visitors will become long-term converts. “What people coming to independent cinemas for the first time might discover is that the quality of film presentation and sound is as good as it gets,” he says. “I know they’re going to go away saying ‘next time I want to watch a film, that’s where I’m going’.”
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