This week saw the widely anticipated “Barbenheimer” box office battle between Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” and Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer.” Both movies garnered excellent reviews from reviewers and moviegoers, which led to amazing box office results. “Barbie” opened with $155 million domestically, playing in 4243 venues, and “Oppenheimer” came in close second with $80.50 million from 3610 locations, according to studio estimates. When the final results are revealed tomorrow, these estimates are anticipated to rise to $159 million and $81 million, respectively.
The weekend box office haul for “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” in North America was an astounding $240 million. The weekend’s overall box office in North America hit a staggering $307 million, making it the biggest weekend since the post-pandemic era, with an additional $67 million from holdovers. This broke the previous record, which had been set on December 17–19, 2021, when “Spider-man: No Way Home” debuted with $260 million and earned a total of $284 million over the course of the weekend.
In historical context, the “Barbenheimer” weekend now stands as the fourth biggest ever in North America. Additionally, this past weekend was just the fourth time that the weekend box office topped the $300 million mark. The top spot still belongs to April 26-28, 2019, when “Avengers: Endgame” opened with an astonishing $358 million, contributing to an overall weekend market total of $404 million. To date, this remains the only weekend where the box office exceeded the $400 million mark.
