'Barbie's Record-Setting $155 Million Box Office Debut Beats Out 'Oppenheimer's $80 Million

The movie weekend dubbed,'Barbenheimer' by social media shattered box office records.

Moviegoers were thinking pink this weekend!

According to Variety, Greta Gerwig's Barbie movie exceeded box-office expectations and outsold Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer. The trade publication projects that Barbie opened with $155 million -- and is one of the biggest opening weekends of the year. 

With the global numbers, Barbie -- starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling -- capped out at $337 million. It wasn't a bad weekend for Nolan's historic drama, starring Emily Blunt, Matt Damon and Cillian Murphy. The film opened with $80.5 million. Both films opening on the same day sent the internet into a frenzy.

The idea that fans would see the movies as a double feature was officially dubbed, "Barbenheimer," with some fans flocking to the theatre in split pink and black outfits in support of both films. The numbers done by both films, as a combined phenomenon, ranked as the fourth biggest weekend in history. 

Still, it was Gerwig's film that took the top spot. The director even made an appearance over the weekend at a screening of the film at the Alamo Draft House in New York City. 

Ahead of the film's highly-anticipated release, ET spoke to Margot Robbie (Barbie) who shared her excitement for the film's release and bringing Gerwig's vision to life.

"I am just so excited. We're at the point of sharing it with the world," she said. "There's always that thing when you make a movie and you love it and you care about it so much and you hope that people are gonna like it and even see it. Like even if they don't like it, I just hope they see it and get to form an opinion. But I feel like so many people are gonna see this movie that it's really exciting."

She added, "It really is Greta's vision. I mean, the vision for Barbie obviously started 64 years ago, but Greta bringing it into the world today in the way that only Greta Gerwig can is what makes this movie worth making right now."

Gerwig spoke about telling the iconic doll's story and why it was important for her to bring her to life.

"She's got a long history. She's gone through a lot of changes," she said. "It's so joyful and so fun.... there's almost a delicious challenge to it. And I think that that must be part of it. But we just tried to always stay true to, like, is it interesting, funny, heartfelt, exciting, beautiful to us? And if it is, then we've just got to believe that that's going to be true for other people."

 

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