Barbenheimer Earned Money by the Millions, but has Hollywood in Distress

By: Caroline Yao

Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer have recently blown up in popularity, making $244 million in their joint opening weekend. Together, they form the cinema event “Barbenheimer.”

The two newly-released movies have become controversial due to the popularity of “Barbenheimer.” ‘Barbenheimer’ is, in short, a contest between two blockbuster films that came out on the same day.

People have been watching Oppenheimer, a dramatized biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer, and Barbie, a comedy about the Mattel doll, one after another. This trend has become extremely popular, dubbed “Barbenheimer,” or “Oppenbarbie,” depending on which movie they watched first, and earned millions for the film industry.

But cinema companies did not have much time to celebrate, for the two movies came out during an actor’s strike. As of this Friday, the Hollywood actors’ strike has been ongoing for a week after 160,000 SAG-AFTRA union members joined the Writers Guild of America, who have been on strike since May. Both strikes are predicted to persist for months, incapacitating new and developing movies and films.

“It’s the best of times, it’s the worst of times,” said Michael Moses, chief marketing officer for Universal Pictures, who oversaw production of Oppenheimer.

Moses also said that in the past few weeks, as the fame of ‘Barbenheimer,’ so did the hostility between the two guilds, and the organization that bargains on behalf of the studios’ Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. With both sides standing firm and the strikes expected to drag into the autumn, the aura for many in Hollywood this weekend will split between tense joy and agitation.

Credit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyvTowUqntQ - BBC News Youtube Channel

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/21/movies/barbenheimer-strike.html - New York Times Article