As the writers’ strike moves towards its fourth month and the actors’ strike ends its first, the future is looking increasingly shaky for Hollywood. Yet box-office takings have rarely been healthier, with strong second weekends for both Barbie and Oppenheimer meaning sold-out screenings and unprecedented post-pandemic buzz.
Greta Gerwig’s feminist comedy was again the weekend leader, taking $93m globally from Friday to Sunday, a drop of 43% from its opening weekend: the seventh-biggest second weekend in history. Overall, Barbie has so far made $775m globally and is already the third best-performing film of the year.
Meanwhile Christopher Nolan’s atomic bomb epic took $46.6m on its second weekend, making it the first R-rated film in the US to make more than $10m over 10 consecutive days. Its global total stands at $400m, already more than Nolan’s previous two films, Tenet and Batman Begins.
One victim of this combined success is the seventh Mission: Impossible film, currently on $448m globally. Although more than its production budget of $291m, it still marks a disappointing falloff for the well-reviewed Tom Cruise blockbuster, whose momentum has taken a hit from the Barbenheimer juggernaut.
July was up 1.4% from pre-Covid levels, but the overall box office for 2023 is still down roughly 20% – in part because of the considerable uplift Cruise’s previous movie, Top Gun: Maverick, had on 2022 takings.