Written by: Sophia da Silva 🇧🇷
Image Via Twitter
This Friday marked the biggest movie event of this summer. The releases of Barbie and Oppenheimer, dubbed "Barbenheimer" by enthusiastic film fans plastering the internet with memes.
The Barbie movie has been getting much attention and enthusiasm from the press and the public. As the release date comes closer fans have been carefully curating outfits and plans just to go see the movies. Particularly, the idea of a double feature with Oppenheimer coming out the same day has become a popular notion.
The Barbie movie is directed by Greta Gerwig who is known for indie films centered around women's experiences. She has directed various well-known films such as Little Women and Lady Bird.
Margot Robbie plays the titular doll with Ryan Gosling as Ken. In a Barbie pink world, they perform alongside a stacked cast including America Ferrera, Simu Liu, and Kate McKinnon.
Oppenheimer is directed by Christopher Nolan who is known for gritty films such as The Dark Knight. Cillian Murphy stars in the film as Julius Robert Oppenheimer, the creator of the first atomic bomb.
The juxtaposition of the two movies has really intrigued fans driving the "Barbenheimer" phenomenon. Many people have even posted their itineraries on the internet.
Image via Twitter
Movie theaters have gotten a lot less attention in the past three years. This is largely because of the pandemic and rise in streaming. This year is the first time in a long time that we've seen so much excitement not only around the movies with a long list of highly anticipated films including The Little Mermaid, Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse and Fast X. “Barbenheimer” in particular emphasizes the event of going to see a movie in the theater.
This is also not a new phenomenon. Something similar happened in 2008 when Mamma Mia! and The Dark Knight, coincidently another Nolan film, were released the same day, July 18. This is also the third time a Nolan film has competed with another movie release in such a large way with Batman Begins being released in 2005 a month apart from Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith which was expected to be a box office boom.