One movie is bursting with life-size doll houses and blowout parties. The other tells the story of the deadliest weapon in human history. One has major movie stars — Margot Robbie and Ryan Gisling — while the other has the lesser-known Cillian Murphy in the title role. But the two wildly incongruous Hollywood mega movies have one thing in common: After a string of Bollywood duds, ‘Barbie’ and ‘Oppenheimer’ have both taken the box office in India by storm.
‘Barbenheimer’, as branded by the internet, is expected to be a magnet drawing people back to theatres. The initial enthusiasm has lived up to the hype, as both movies together have sold more than 400,000 tickets across top multiplex chains in the country. “We are expecting above average occupancies for both the films,” says Gautam Dutta, co-CEO, PVR INOX. “Our IMAX screens across the country are fully booked for the entire weekend. Our big screen formats like P[XL], BIGPIX are contributing to our first day occupancies of over 60%.”
That’s a big deal in July, which is supposed to be a dry month for movie exhibitors in India. On a consolidated net box office basis, the two releases can expect to do Rs 120-140 crore at the box office over the next week or so, say experts.
‘Oppenheimer’, exhibitors say, has shown bigger promise with 360,000 in pre-sales on BookMyShow vis a vis 91,000 f r ‘Barbie’.
It is predicted to open among the Top 3 Hollywood films of 2023 in India. As per trade platform Sacnilk, with over 42% occupancy, ‘Oppenheimer’ is expecting Rs 15 crore in Day 1 net collection to Rs 8 crore for ‘Barbie’.
The latter might have had a slight setback because of ‘Mission Impossible 7’, the other big Hollywood release (July 12) running to packed houses. “Had it been a single Hollywood release, we would have seen Barbie do Rs 10-plus crore net. But now audiences have got divided with a bigger chunk going for ‘Oppenheimer’. Don’t forget ‘Mission Impossible 7’, which is also likely to retain a decent amount of viewers,” says a PVR manager at a Noida theatre.
Karan Taurani, senior vice-president & research analyst at Elara Capital, says ‘Barbie’ is supposed to be bigger than ‘Oppenheimer’ globally, but in India the latter will outperform ‘Barbie’ because of two reasons. Director Christopher Nolan has a strong recall, track record and franchise value among audience here. Second, ‘Oppenheimer’ being an IMAX film and India having only 25 IMAX screens, ticket prices will be at a hefty premium. So I anticipate ‘Oppenheimer’ collections will be far higher than ‘Barbie’.”
BookMyShow reported that 8% of the transactors for ‘Oppenheimer’ also booked tickets for ‘Barbie’, and 27% of the transactors for ‘Oppenheimer’ had booked ‘Mission Impossible 7’ recently, indicating a strong appetite for big-ticket Hollywood offerings.
The Tom Cruise-starrer ‘Mission: Impossible 7’ has already logged over Rs 82 crore net in its first week at the theatres, overtaking the lifetime earnings of predecessor ‘Mission Impossible Fallout’ (Rs 80 crore) at the domestic box office.