Barbenheimer: Vue hails 'biggest movie weekend' since Avengers Endgame

Vue hails ‘biggest movie weekend’ since Avengers: Endgame hit screens in 2019 as ‘Barbenheimer’ fuels millions of fans to hit cinemas for monster five-hour film marathon

• Vue says fifth of customers bought tickets to see both Barbie and Oppenheimer
• More than 2,000 of Vue’s screenings for Barbie were sold out over the weekend

The release of Barbie and Oppenheimer gave Vue its ‘biggest movie weekend’ since Avengers: Endgame was released, the cinema chain’s boss said today.

The company, which has 91 cinemas in Britain, said a fifth of its customers had bought tickets to see both films in a double bill dubbed online as ‘Barbenheimer’.

Vue International chief executive Tim Richards hailed an ‘absolutely extraordinary weekend’ for the firm with more than two million people watching Barbie alone.

Some 2,000 of Vue’s screenings for Barbie were sold out, while the chain had more than 4,000 sell-out sessions across the country during the weekend.

The two films, released last Friday, have contrasting storylines, with Greta Gerwig’s comedy about the famous doll Barbie, and Christopher Nolan’s biographical thriller about physicist J Robert Oppenheimer’s role in developing the first atomic bomb.

People outside the Vue West End cinema in London’s Leicester Square on Friday as Barbie and Oppenheimer were released on the same weekend – giving the chain bumper ticket sales

Greta Gerwig’s comedy about the doll Barbie stars Margot Robbie and came out last Friday

Christopher Nolan’s thriller about physicist J Robert Oppenheimer stars Cillian Murphy 

Barbenheimer also brought moviegoers back to US cinemas in record numbers – vastly outperforming projections and giving hope amid the backdrop of strikes. 

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Mr Richards, who is also the founder of Vue and chair of the British Film Institute, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning: ‘It’s been an absolutely extraordinary weekend. We knew that it was going to be a big weekend.

‘What this last weekend proved is that our customers never left us after the pandemic, it’s been a supply issue and we need movies. If you look at this last weekend, it was the biggest movie weekend since 2019 when the Avengers Endgame was released and that was the second biggest movie of all time.

‘We had over two million people see Barbie alone on the weekend – and it’s not just Barbie, it’s not just the big tentpoles. It’s also smaller films – black and white movies like Belfast, adult comedies like Ticket to Paradise, every customer, every demographic, has returned. We just need more movies. We are very bullish in the future and this weekend has helped proved it.’

Vue’s biggest sites for Barbie included Cambridge, Glasgow St Enoch, Leeds Kirkstall, Cwmbran, Islington, Bolton and Portsmouth.

The company said the film, starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, will exceed ticket sales for Super Mario Bros and Oppenheimer to become the biggest film of the year.

Asked about the context of ongoing strikes in Hollywood, Mr Richards added: ‘The timing is unfortunate, but the stakes are very high on both sides and we are hoping for a quick resolution to the strike. 

Vue International said it was the biggest weekend since Avengers: Endgame came out in 2019

Vue International chief executive Tim Richards hailed an ‘absolutely extraordinary weekend’

‘But fortunately all the summer movies, Barbie, Oppenheimer, Mission Impossible, Guardians of the Galaxy and so forth have all been marketed and released and the movies for 2023 have all been finished. 

READ MORE ‘I shed a tear, it was amazing’: Ecstatic Barbie fans flock to Leicester Square for ‘cultural moment of the decade’ to see their film do battle with Oppenheimer (with some hardcore cinephiles sitting through FIVE HOUR double bill)

‘So we’re in pretty good shape right now for the summer and for the balance of the year and hopefully the resolution will be finished in the next month or two.’

He said Barbie now has a ‘good chance of getting into the Top 10 highest grossing films of all time’. 

And, asked about what people are spending at the cinema amid the cost-of-living crisis, Mr Richards said: ‘We are very concerned and very aware of what our customers have gone through, particularly with the high levels of inflation in the last 12 months – and we have done our very best not to pass on our higher costs on to the customers. 

‘If you look across the country right now, we have £4.99 tickets available at half of our sites across the country to try and help our customers. But what we are seeing is a fairly healthy, even significant increase in concession spend. And I think after the pandemic our customers what to indulge themselves more.’

Odeon reported last Thursday that more than 200,000 advance tickets had been bought and over 10,000 guests were expected to see both films during the opening weekend.

Universal Pictures said Oppenheimer, which stars Cillian Murphy and Florence Pugh, had made £8.05million in the UK and Ireland since Friday.

The film production and distribution company said the biopic is on track to have a better opening three days than Nolan’s other blockbusters Dunkirk, Interstellar and Inception.

In the US, Barbie claimed the top spot with $155million (£120 million) in ticket sales from North American cinemas from 4,243 locations, surpassing The Super Mario Bros Movie as well as every Marvel movie this year as the biggest opening of the year and breaking the first weekend record for a film directed by a woman.

Cinemagoers queue for the premiere of Barbie in London’s Leicester Square last Friday

Oppenheimer also soared past expectations in North America, taking in $80.5million (£62.6million) from 3,610 cinemas in the US and Canada, marking Nolan’s biggest non-Batman debut and one of the best starts for an R-rated biographical drama.

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It’s also the first time one movie opened to more than $100million (£77.8million) and another movie opened to more than $80 million (£62.2million) in the same weekend.

It is expected to be the fourth biggest box office weekend of all time in the US with more than $300 million (£233 million) industrywide.

The Barbenheimer phenomenon may have started out as good-natured competition between two aesthetic opposites, but both movies appeared to have benefited.

Internationally, Barbie earned $182million dollars (£142million) from 69 territories, fuelling a $337million (£262million) global weekend.

Oppenheimer earned $93.7million (£72.9million) from 78 territories, ranking above Barbie in India, for a $174.2million (£135.5million) global total.

The only real casualty was Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part I, which despite strong reviews and a healthy opening weekend fell 64 per cent in weekend two.

Overshadowed by the Barbenheimer glow as well as the blow of losing its Imax screens to Oppenheimer, the new Tom Cruise movie added $19.5million (£15.1million), bringing its domestic total to $118.8 million (£92.4million).