'Barbenheimer' gives Twin Cities area movie theaters much needed boost

As many local movie theaters work to recover from the financial hits of COVID-19 closures and a rise in at-home streaming, an unlikely summer blockbuster duo gave a needed boost to ticket sales.

"Barbie" and "Oppenheimer," both released July 21, have shattered expectations — and records. It's a game-changer for an industry, as the internet dubbed the dual releases "Barbenheimer," and many moviegoers planned for a double feature.

The openings gave AMC its largest weekend since before COVID-19 closures in 2020, and revenue from the full week was the highest in the chain's 103-year history.

The movies also helped make July one of the top-performing months in the "history of motion pictures," according to a statement from the National Association of Theatre Owners.

Theater owners are optimistic that the movies proved the magic of cinema is still economically viable, as some experts worry that writer and actor guild strikes could cause a slow start to next year.

In less than two weeks after the blockbusters' premieres, the Main Cinema in Minneapolis has sold out 20 times for screenings of "Barbie" and 10 times for "Oppenheimer."

"Barbie" and "Oppenheimer," respectively, have been the two highest-grossing releases in the theater's history, said Susan Smoluchowski, executive director of the MSP Film Society, which owns the Main.

"I call it a phenomenon," Smoluchowski said. "And it's been rather phenomenal in terms of the amount of tickets that we've sold and the number of people who've been in our theater. There's no other film ever in history at that theater that has grossed this well."

In the first 10 days, "Barbie" grossed $70,000 at the Main, with "Oppenheimer" falling far below at $25,000. For comparison, another major release of this summer — Wes Anderson's "Asteroid City" — has brought in $25,000 for the theater over six weeks.

The level of enthusiasm surrounding "Barbie" is nearly unprecedented, and marks a new record in the last three years, according to Patrick Cross, theater manager of Landmark Lagoon Cinema in Uptown.

"Nothing since the pandemic is even close," Cross said. "Whatever our previous best attended weekend so far since reopening was, this was easily triple that."

Despite the stark differences between Greta Gerwig's feminist take on the iconic Mattel doll and Christopher Nolan's three-hour chilling tale of the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, who led the Manhattan Project that created the atomic bomb, the simultaneous premieres of "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer" actually strengthened the two movies' success.

"It's truly unprecedented to witness not just one, but two films perform so remarkably well and mutually bolster each other with the 'Barbenheimer' trend," said Paul Dergarabedian, a senior media analyst for analytics company Comscore, in a news release.

"Barbie" made $162 million during the opening weekend, nearly double "Oppenheimer" at $82.4 million.

In the weeks leading up to the movie's release, excitement for "Barbie" was augmented by numerous events in the Twin Cities, from a real-life Barbie Dreamhouse to a glittery bar crawl in the North Loop.

Generations of Barbie fans — clad in pink, of course — flocked to Crave American Kitchen & Sushi in downtown Minneapolis last weekend to celebrate the blockbuster with Barbie-themed drag brunches.

Three brunch shows, featuring four drag queens and organized by Flip Phone Events, sold out and drew 800 people to the restaurant. Chad Kampe, owner of Flip Phone, said the events were some of the "more successful" movie-inspired brunch themes they've presented.

"I think people just love the movie," Kampe said. "They love the Barbie message and spirit. And people just love wearing pink."

That weekend was so triumphant that Kampe announced a Barbie bar crawl Sept. 9 and another three Barbie drag shows Sept. 24, with the hope of winning ongoing support from doll devotees.

Moviegoing preferences during the pandemic evolved for many consumers as at-home viewings replaced the silver screen. Box office sales are gradually growing back to pre-pandemic levels, with "Barbenheimer" as proof of demand.

"I think the best takeaway for theaters is the hope that, when you really bring it down to its baseline, is people seeing movies with other people again and liking that experience," Cross said.

The long-term future of movie theaters is still uncertain and success is "touch and go," Cross said. He said the Hollywood strikes of the Writers Guild of America and Screen Actors Guild could affect revenue next year. The strike has already halted production and promotion of some movies.

But for now, national trends are reflecting the resuscitated success of local theaters.

On a film-by-film basis, box office sales rebounded to 2019 numbers in 2022, limited by the number of blockbuster releases, a March report by the Cinema Foundation stated. But the number of wide release films scheduled for 2023 is more than 40% higher than in 2022, nearly back to pre-pandemic levels.

In 2022, box office revenue in the U.S. and Canada was $7.5 billion, up from $4.5 billion in 2021 and $2.3 billion in 2020, but still not near the $11 billion per year pre-pandemic earnings.

"Because we're still surfacing from the pandemic, it's just all the more remarkable," MSP Film Society's Smoluchowski said.

She hopes the mass excitement around moviegoing will translate beyond the summer of "Barbenheimer," counteracting pandemic and streaming service-fueled declines.

"I've always believed that people will want to come back and be together in a movie theater," Smoluchowski said. "It gives me confidence that maybe I was right."