Barbie vs Oppenheimer latest: Greta Gerwig explains Barbie’s ending after record-breaking box office debut

Gerwig broke the domestic box office record for female director with ‘Barbie’ debut

Barbie cast turn London Eye pink to celebrate film premiere

Greta Gerwig has broken the domestic box office record for a female director, with Barbie debuting at $155m in North America and $337m globally.

The film surpassed the $103.3m domestic opening of Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman and the $153m weekend opening of 2019’s Captain Marvel, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Cinemas around the world were busier than ever over the weekend, thanks to the simultaneous release of Barbie and Oppenheimer, with excitement for Gerwig and Christopher Nolan’s respective blockbusters going into overdrive.

While Oppenheimer’s critical ratings have blown past Barbie with a near-perfect Rotten Tomato score, the latter, which stars Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, has surpassed the Cillian Murphy-starring biopic’s box office takings.

In a new interview with The Independent, Nolan described Oppenheimer as “the biggest film I’ve made”. Murphy admitted to struggling to watch the film due to seeing his face projected on the screen, but acknowledged that the film is “designed” to be “watched with an audience”.

Meanwhile, Gerwig has spoken about her film’s “mic drop” ending, after breaking the record for the biggest box office debut by a female director.

Key points

• ‘Life in plastic, it’s fantastic!’: Barbie gets five stars from The Independent
• Read The Independent’s four-star review of Oppenheimer
• Mission: Impossible struggles at box office against record-breaking might of Barbenheimer
• Christopher Nolan and Cillian Murphy on Oppenheimer: ‘Taking that risk on behalf of us all – there’s nothing bigger than that’
• Oppenheimer’s women: the true story of the brilliant, complicated female figures behind the famed physicist

[24 July 2023 12:15 · Peony Hirwani]

Robert Downey Jr praises Cillian Murphy’s ‘great sacrifice’ for ‘behemoth’ Oppenheimer role

Robert Downey Jr has showered praise on his Oppenheimer co-star Cillian Murphy for his level of commitment to his portrayal of the film’s lead character.

[24 July 2023 12:00 · Peony Hirwani]

The story behind Greta Gerwig’s doomed How I Met Your Mother spin-off

Before Greta Gerwig rose to greater acclaim as a director, she acted in projects including Noah Baumbach’s comedy-drama Greenberg in 2010, and in the title role of his 2013 film Frances Ha, which she co-wrote.

Off the back of these critical hits, Gerwig was cast in a spinoff of the hit comedy series How I Met Your Mother, which intended to follow a woman named Sophie (Gerwig) as she recounts the story of how she met her son’s dad.

Sadly, the project was doomed to fail, with Gerwig’s pilot sadly never manifesting into a full series order.

[24 July 2023 11:30 · Peony Hirwani]

Mattel accused of ‘stealth marketing’ after giving away free Barbie dolls in schools

Mattel has sparked criticism for “stealth marketing” to children after a new programme gave away free Barbie dolls in schools, a move that health experts are claiming reinforces damaging gender stereotypes.

The toy manufacturer launched the “Barbie School of Friendship” programme this year, in which free Barbie dolls were given to an estimated 150,000 students in 700 schools across the UK to teach social skills.

[24 July 2023 11:00 · Peony Hirwani]

Too gay, too weird, too pregnant: The most controversial Barbie dolls in history

Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie features cameos from a host of surreal dolls quietly discontinued by Mattel – among them a pregnant plastic woman and Rob Brydon’s ‘Sugar Daddy Ken’. Believe it or not, all of them are ripped from reality, writes Ellie Muir.

[24 July 2023 10:30 · Peony Hirwani]

Barbie review: A near-miraculous achievement from Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie

“While it’s impossible for any studio film to be truly subversive, this Mattel-approved comedy gets away with far more than you’d think was possible,” writes The Independent’s Clarisse Loughrey.

[24 July 2023 10:00 · Peony Hirwani]

The true story of the complex female figures behind J R Oppenheimer

In Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan’s new film about the inventor of the atomic bomb, Florence Pugh is the messy mistress Jean Tatlock, Emily Blunt the alcoholic wife. The Independent’s Annabel Nugent talks to historians and discovers the women’s true story to be worthy of a three-hour film of its own.

[24 July 2023 09:30 · Peony Hirwani]

What order should you watch Barbie and Oppenheimer in?

With the two films out in the same week, many people have committed to seeing them one after the other, as part of a self-curated double bill.

The radically different tones of the two films has, however, provoked some debate regarding the optimal order in which to view the films.

Louis Chilton writes.

[24 July 2023 09:15 · Peony Hirwani]

Mission: Impossible struggles at box office against record-breaking might of Barbenheimer

Tom Cruise seems to be facing his very own Mission: Impossible as the latest movie in the action franchise, Dead Reckoning, continues to struggle at the box office against the dual releases of Barbie and Oppenheimer.

In its second weekend, Christopher McQuarrie’s Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One fell by 64 per cent to $19.5m (£15m) when going up against Barbie and Oppenheimer.

[24 July 2023 09:00 · Peony Hirwani]

Oppenheimer review: Clever, imaginative and Christopher Nolan at his best

“Cillian Murphy allows the light to dim from his eyes in every subsequent scene, but it is Robert Downey Jr who is titanic here,” writes The Independent’s Clarisse Loughrey.

[24 July 2023 08:31 · Peony Hirwani]

Greta Gerwig makes domestic box office history with biggest opening for a female director

Barbie director Greta Gerwig has made box office history by breaking the opening weekend record for a female director, solo or otherwise.

Gerwig’s movie opened to an estimated $155m at the North American box office and a whopping $337m at the global box office over the 21-23 July weekend.

The film easily surpassed the $103.3m domestic opening of Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman and $153m opening of 2019 Captain Marvel.