news culture Barbie surpasses Avatar 2, but only on this specific point!
Published on 07/20/2023 at 15:45
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It’s a duel like we rarely see that is currently taking place in cinemas around the world: Barbie versus Oppenheimer or a cult toy against the creator of the atomic bomb. If Christopher Nolan’s film surpasses the one with Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling by a short head for critics, Barbie’s adventures can boast of having snatched a record from Avatar: The Way of the Water!
Record presales
Can the Barbie community surpass the Na’vi people of Pandora? Nothing is less sure. The film directed by James Cameron garnered no less than 2.32 billion worldwide during its cinema exploitation and gathered 14,000,537 spectators in France. As a reminder, the first Avatar had seduced 14.64 million. The new adventures of Jake Sully and the Na’vis are a phenomenon that defies comprehension, even if the critics were a little less enthusiastic with a score of “only” 76% on RottenTomatoes, compared to 82% for Avatar.
Barbie is crowned with a smiling 88%, but this is not what particularly interests us today. What unites us here is the fact that the film directed by Greta Gerwig (The House of the Devil, Jackie, LOL) surpasses Avatar: The Way of the Water, and not in just any area. In effect, this funny, acidic and above all rosy epic collected the “modest” sum of 135 million US dollars in presales, while the pundits of Warner Bros. Pictures originally planned to debut at $75-80 million. Avatar 2 had to settle for 134 million in December 2022. Barbie has therefore dethroned the King of the box office, certainly on pre-sales, but this announces a bright future for Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling and the citizens of Barbieland.
The Barbenheimer phenomenon
All it took was the simultaneous release of two of the most anticipated films of 2023 for an international phenomenon to emerge. This phenomenon is “barbenheimer” or the contraction of Barbie and Oppenheimer. Creation of posters, fake trailers, top trends on social networks… artists but also Internet users have seized on this historic cinematographic duel. This movement could allow feature films by Greta Gerwig and Christopher Nolan to reach box office heights by attracting the general public to cinemas to see not ONE but TWO films. The greatest reward remains the enthusiasm and approval of the spectators.
