Barbie Movie Just Had the Best Domestic Box Office Opening Day of 2023 so Far
Barbie is, truly, partying this weekend, with Greta Gerwig's take on the plastic and pink phenomenon bringing in $70.5 million on opening day for the biggest domestic box office opening of the year.
That puts it ahead of previous frontrunner Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, which brought in $51.8 million on its June opening day. It also beat out the two even higher-grossing best single days for The Super Mario Bros Movie on April 7 ($54.8 million) and 8 ($57 million), respectively. Clearly, the power of the pink marketing cycle has paid off.
Now, Barbie sits within reach of beating out Mario for opening weekend as well, which brought in $146 million in its three-day opening weekend domestically after an April 5 release that helped it benefit from Easter weekend. It'll have a tough battle to truly chase Mario, though, as Mario has grossed $574 million at the domestic box office to date, and $1.3 billion worldwide, making it the highest-grossing movie of the year on both counts.
By contrast, Oppenheimer brought in $33 million on the same opening day at the domestic box office as Barbie. The two films have together reached meme status in recent months due to their shared release date and wildly contrasting tones, with social media dubbing the two together "Barbenheimer" and suggesting the two be watched as a double feature.
Critically, both films are thriving. We called Barbie a "masterful exploration of feminity and the pressures of perfection," in our 9/10 review, and Oppenheimer we dubbed "Christopher Nolan's most abstract yet most exacting work" with a 10/10 score.
Source: IGN
