Box office: Original films beat the franchises in one of the biggest weekends of all time

Barbie, Oppenheimer, and Sound of Freedom top the chart, and more.

Left to right: Margot Robbie in Barbie, Cillian Murphy in Oppenheimer, and Jim Caviezel in Sound of Freedom.

This has been a very strange year at the box office.

The first few months were very, very slow, and then—after the phenomenal success of The Super Mario Bros. Movie in April and the solid performance of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 in early May—there was a big batch of underperformers and outright flops that tripped all over each other between mid-May and late June.

Even films that did okay were hobbled by the fact that they cost so much to make in the first place. Fast X has grossed $704.7 million worldwide, which would ordinarily be something to celebrate, but reportedly that film cost $340 million to produce, before you take promotional expenses into account, and of course, as much as half of that film’s theatrical revenue stays with the theatres—so it’s quite possible that Fast X has actually lost money in theatres. Ditto The Little Mermaid, which has grossed $556.4 million worldwide so far but reportedly cost $250 million to produce.

And then there are the outright money losers like The Flash (production budget: $220 million; worldwide gross: $267.6 million) and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (production budget: $295 million; worldwide gross to date: $335 million).

The only bona fide success to come out of that early-summer train wreck? Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, an animated film that has grossed over $670 million worldwide so far and, like The Super Mario Bros. Movie, cost only $100 million to make.

So, it’s been a pretty bleak summer overall.

But now, suddenly, whammo! Two new films—Barbie and Oppenheimer—opened this week and were massive, massive hits, breaking box-office records and driving theatres to their biggest weekend haul since the pandemic began three years ago.¹ And they did all that despite not being part of existing big-screen franchises!

So, summer is finally saved, and just in the nick of time, right?

Maybe. But this moment of triumph won’t last for long. There are big question marks over some of this year’s remaining releases, and, more ominously, the actors’ and writers’ unions are both on strike right now, and distributors have already started to move some of this year’s upcoming films to next year as a result.

So, after months of relative famine, we are currently experiencing a big feast, and we could very soon go back to a state of relative famine. We shall see.

In the meantime, I figured I’d take a closer look at some of the films on this week’s top ten list, and make note of some of the milestones they’ve reached.

Here they are, in box-office order (all stats are domestic i.e. North American unless stated otherwise, and no adjustment has been made for inflation):

1. Barbie (dir. Greta Gerwig) — $155 million opening

• This easily breaks the record for top opening weekend by a solo female director (Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman, 2017, $103.3 million), and, if the estimate holds, it will break the record for top opening weekend by any female director (Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck’s Captain Marvel, 2019, $153.4 million).

• Barbie has already nearly outgrossed all three of Gerwig’s previous directorial efforts combined (Little Women, 2019, $108.1 million + Lady Bird, 2017, $49 million + Nights and Weekends, 2008, $5,430 = all three films, $157.1 million).

• This is officially the top opening of the year, beating The Super Mario Bros. Movie’s $146.4 million, although that film opened on a Wednesday and counted its weekday grosses and weekend grosses separately, whereas Barbie’s “weekend” figure includes $22.3 million in Wednesday and Thursday “previews”.

  • Mario’s Wednesday-to-Sunday gross was $204.6 million.

• This is also the fourth-best opening of the post-pandemic era, and thus the fourth-best opening of the decade, behind three Marvel movies (Spider-Man: No Way Home, 2021, $260.1 million; Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, 2022, $187.4 million; Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, 2022, $181.3 million).

• Barbie has also grossed $182 million overseas and, thus, $337 million worldwide.

• Barbie, just on the strength of its first weekend, already ranks fairly high among female-directed films (including films co-directed by men and women). It currently ranks 17th in North America, 21st overseas, and 18th worldwide.

Sorted by domestic i.e. North American gross.