Barbie Parties Her Way To $93 Million Second Weekend At The Box Office
Update 07/30/2023: "Barbie" finished her second weekend slightly below Saturday's projections, grossing $93 million for a drop of just 43 percent from her debut, according to Variety. The headline has been adjusted to reflect this. Original article follows.
The "Barbie" success story just keeps going: the second-weekend estimations for the shiny pink Mattel movie are in, and it's clear that Americans aren't going to be ready to stop playing with their Barbies anytime soon. According to The Hollywood Reporter, "Barbie" is set to add a stunning $95 million domestically in its second weekend, making for a much stronger hold than most blockbusters are seeing these days.
After raking in $500 million worldwide in its first week alone, the film's second weekend is set for a 41 percent drop from its debut. Compare that to many of the most-anticipated releases from the post-pandemic theatergoing era, and it's an impressive victory that bodes well for the weeks to come. In the past few years, precipitous drops have almost become more the norm than the exception, with movies like "Halloween Ends," "Morbius," and "The Flash" all dropping more than 70% in weekend two (per Box Office Mojo). "Barbie" is proof positive that some event films can still get butts in seats — and keep people coming back.
Barbie keeps breaking records
That $95 million haul means "Barbie" is set to break a record for Warner Bros., giving the company its biggest second weekend in history ("The Dark Knight" previously held that honor). Assuming it hits the numbers it's tracking for, the Greta Gerwig fantasy-comedy will also be able to count itself among the top 10 second weekends in U.S. domestic box office history, bested mostly by Marvel movies. With "The Super Mario Bros Movie" movie also nabbing a spot on that list this year, it seems likely that 2023 will be known as a year for franchise-building foundations. Mattel is already set to make a boatload of other movies — including a depressed "Barney" flick produced by Daniel Kaluuya — and Nintendo could easily do the same after dropping a clue about a potential sequel in the "Super Mario Bros Movie" post-credits.
Sure, in five years we might be reading articles about "toy movie fatigue" or "video game movie fatigue," but for now, these major success stories feel thrilling. "Barbie" is a deeply weird movie with references to "2001: A Space Odyssey," overt feminist rhetoric, and a dreamy, Kaufman-esque approach to existence itself. The fact that millions of people have seen it together, many of them dressed in their prettiest pink, feels a bit like a modern theatrical miracle. The film is set to reach $750 million worldwide by weekend's end, and shows no signs of stopping.
The other half of Barbenheimer, Christopher Nolan's "Oppenheimer," is also set for a great second weekend; it should be gross another $46 million domestically Friday-to-Sunday, per THR. Meanwhile, Disney's new "Haunted Mansion" movie fared about as well as you'd expect from a Halloween movie released in July: it's tracking for an opening of around $25 million this weekend.