The Lesson of Barbenheimer: Not Everything Has To Be For You

Movies

This past weekend was the “Barbenheimer” showdown, with two big releases arriving at the same time in the middle of a dud-filled summer. According to the trailers (I’m not getting into whether anything was woke because this isn’t about that – well, not in terms of these two movies), it was a fun popcorn flick for girls up against a thoughtful historical drama from Christopher Nolan. And the winner was… everyone. Technically, Barbie made more money with a $356 million worldwide gross, which isn’t a shock; light entertainment tends to do better than heady drama, if only because kids will want to go, and I’m sure people wanted to see the Barbie sets and designs on the big screen. But Oppenheimer did great business, too, exceeding expectations and earning $180.4 million worldwide. These films proved that people still want to go to the movies, and the purveyors of the trash that’s been bombing all year long can’t blame COVID fears for their failures. (This was already proven by Spider-Man and Tom Cruise, but a new pair of examples is welcome.)

It also proved that movies don’t have to fit a certain paradigm to be hits. Barbie is (again, based on the ads) a big, goofy, pink-covered girl movie, and Oppenheimer is mostly a bunch of people talking about physics and the morality of using weapons of mass destruction; they’re not about superheroes or wars in the stars or animated metaphors for navigating life’s changing seasons. And yet, they eclipsed all of the traditional blockbuster releases, with Barbie beating even Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One in its opening global take, and Oppenheimer edging it out domestically (and keep in mind, Dead Reckoning had a five-day opening instead of Oppenheimer and Barbie’s three-day). This should be a wake-up call to Hollywood; not only do people want to see something different, but movies that have niche appeal can be successful. There’s no need to shy away from big movies for girls because lots of people are girls, and audiences are looking for more serious and thought-provoking films as well. And they’ve got relatively modest budgets – $100 million for Oppenheimer and somewhere between $128 million and $145 million for Barbie. And this isn’t even factoring in Sound of Freedom, a sleeper hit that cost less than $15 million to make. This is very good for movies as an art form and for moviegoers who’d like a legitimate choice at the theater.

For studios and the people who complain about whether a movie checks enough of the boxes on their constantly growing list, it’s also a clear message about what’s been ruining a lot of movies lately: not everything has to be for you. Take me, for example; I didn’t see Barbie, and I don’t plan to, because it doesn’t appeal to me. I know plenty of guys who feel the same way. At the same time, I’m sure there are people who aren’t interested in a movie like Oppenheimer, whereas I saw it and loved it. That’s fine on both counts; nobody should have to see a movie they don’t want to see, and neither of these films was hurt by appealing to a certain segment of the audience. Their budgets also played a role in this; Barbie and Oppenheimer were made on budgets reflective of their potential appeal, and both are doing gangbusters relative to those budgets. Now, take something like Bros, a gay romantic comedy that wore its activism on its sleeve. A movie like that has an audience much more niche than either Barbie or Oppenheimer, but it was made for entirely too much money – $22 million, which seems small, but keep in mind the limited potential audience – and received a wide release, necessitating a big marketing push. The result was a bomb, and co-writer and star Billy Eichner lambasted anyone who didn’t want to see it.

You know who hasn’t done that? Christopher Nolan, Greta Gerwig, Cillian Murphy, and Margot Robbie. They understand the movies they made, and they’re letting them stand on their own. They had faith that those who wanted to see their films would come to the theater, and they’re being rewarded for that. They didn’t put anyone off except people who weren’t interested in the first place. Now, let’s leave Bros aside (like the rest of the world did) and look at some of the big bombs of 2023. Remember when Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny gave its audience – adventure fans who love Indiana Jones and Harrison Ford – a movie where Indy was a pathetic loser who was constantly shown up by an insufferable girlboss and was relegated to being the damsel in distress? Unsurprisingly, almost nobody saw it, the few who did didn’t like it, and director James Mangold insulted the audience in the wake of its failure. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania sidelined half of the title characters, constantly berated the other half, turned Scott Lang’s formerly likable daughter into an ungrateful brat who insults the father who risked his life to save her and the universe, demeaned one of Marvel Comics’ classic couples, and made the big villain of the next few phases look like an incompetent dolt. It bombed, and writer Jeff Loveness mocked fans for wishing MODOK were taken seriously. The Flash took the name of a beloved comic book story and bastardized it into a ridiculous cartoon with an awful lead performance (or pair of them) and an aftermath that will ultimately mean nothing, so it bombed, and director Andy Muschietti tried to convince people that the awful special effects were an artistic choice.

The point is that these movies, unlike Barbie and Oppenheimer, tried to appeal to people outside their core audience. Barbie is a girl movie that isn’t interested in attracting boys, and it’s a hit because its audience went in droves to see it. Dial of Destiny tried to shove in as much girl power as possible, and the boys who love Indy stayed home. Quantumania, similarly, belittled Ant-Man and elevated his daughter to co-lead status, and nobody liked it. The Flash turned a serious, monumental story from the comics into a goofy, silly movie that will have no effect on the DC Universe because the whole shebang is about to be rebooted, and nobody cared. And it’s happened elsewhere; how many of Marvel’s Disney+ shows tear down the heroes everyone loves to replace them with a new and improved version? I know it’s hard to tell from the billions of dollars the first three MCU phases brought in, but Marvel fans kind of like those guys. How big did the new James Bond movie go over when it reduced Bond to an irrelevant has-been who struck out with women, watched as his arch-nemesis was removed by some lame-o, and allowed himself to be defeated? I’m sure it appealed to Barbara Broccoli and Phoebe Waller-Bridge, but not to anyone who actually loves James Bond. And those aspects of the movies and shows were advertised in the trailers, so people knew what to expect. Conversely, Barbie advertised a fun two hours with every girl’s favorite dolls, and Oppenheimer promised a tense, dramatic portrait of a complicated man and an even more complicated moment in history. They appealed to their demographic instead of taking them for granted to try to reach another.

The idea that they will broaden the appeal of these films is likely fueled by the perpetually offended Twitter types who demand more representation, more modernity, more diversity, more whatever they want this week – much of which the heads of these studios mirror. But these people are not potential customers; they just like to whine. Do you think feminists who hate the term “Bond Girl” are ever going to be won over by a James Bond movie? No, but Bond fans will be put off if you change their favorite character. Marvel has found that their unicorn female audience won’t tune in to their shows or show up for their movies, but their fans will leave when they see poorly-made productions that demean their favorite heroes. Disney and Lucasfilm discovered that Indiana Jones fans like Indiana Jones to the tune of a lost $200-$300 million, and Warner Bros. is even more in the hole because they turned a dark, tragic comic book story into a supposedly broadly-appealing farce. The lesson isn’t that you can’t make movies for those people; it’s that not all movies should be made for them, or anyone else. I hope that’s Barbenheimer’s legacy, but knowing Hollywood, I doubt it will be.