I'm surprised Korea is skipping it so they can take notes.

China is breaking out for barbie. Monday looks 3M+, higher than saturday and it has one of the best attendance of all films so it's probably safe for screen cuts.

MI7 on the other hand is dead as a doornail.

lol

Barbie's massive global success vs Little Mermaid is going to remind Hollywood of the unfortunate reality that a large chunk of the world goes to see Hollywood movies because it's their chance to see hot white people on screen. And that has been the case since the golden age of Hollywood. Romance + a very specific ideal of beauty were always the American film industry's main global selling points, from Gone with the Wind to Titanic.

It might change a bit as African countries grow as movie markets, but as of now that's definitely true.

I dont want to talk spoilers but some of the discussion around Japan in the movie was disturbing. I dont see how Japanese folks can watch it without negative bias. Anyway it does not even have a release date. We will have to wait and see if and when it opens over there.

Not sure what to expect but PH in 2001 saw it open on 424 screens and gross $7.2 million in its opening weekend (including $1.6 million in previews), a record for Disney in Japan, and the sixth highest opening of all-time. $10.8M over 5 days. 80% ahead of Saving Private Ryan.

Realize it's a very different market and movie but thought I'd share the context.

Source: https://variety.com/2001/film/box-offic ... 117850186/

I don't know if audiences really feel that way... SCHINDLER'S LIST was an Überblockbuster in Germany (6.2m admissions) despite Germany's history...

WWII movies tend to do well in Japan. Most don't breakout, but they still often do decent business. There's an audience for them. And there are also plenty of examples of hits/blockbusters, too, like Pearl Harbor and Letters From Iwo Jima from Hollywood, and The Eternal Zero and The Wind Rises locally.

Oppenheimer will be a unique test, of course, but I'd be shocked if it doesn't at least get released. I haven't seen it yet, but it'd probably have to REALLY paint the Japanese people (the public, not the leaders then) in a very negative light to not get a proper release. Old nationalists aside, the majority of Japanese separate the leaders from the public then and will say the leaders were doing wrong, and still do today with modern leaders. They won't say they deserved to be have nukes dropped on innocent people, of course, but you get the idea. There's awareness and recognition of the situation.

Box-office will be questionable, but I don't think it'd totally bomb or anything. Toho owns Universal distributor rights in Japan, so they'd be best to market it too. A non-Japanese distributor might have had issues. Given the reception in the US and the box-office here (and mostly internationally too it seems), it could even have some breakout potential. I'd expect a November/December release.

Note... I'm not Japanese nor am I an expert on this subject. This is just my perception of the issue having followed the box office.

I hope I am wrong and Oppenheimer has a good run in Japan.

Or lanky blue people

Yeah but dealing with Holocaust guilt has been part of German culture for decades, they're very open about it and it makes sense they'd embrace going to see a movie like that.

Barbie in China is really turning into something!

Tuesday $2.7M from 35K screenings (+4K). Down just 6.9% from Monday (31K screenings+4K).

Total $13.7M in 5 days.

Wed: Already $700K in presales, with 36K total screenings (+1K).

Dailies so far:
Fri: $1.2M
Sat: $2.8M +133%
Sun: $4.1M +46%
Mon: $2.9 M -29%
Tues: $2.7M

Barbie looks like 600m OS/1.1B Ww
Oppenheimer looks like 300mOS/600m WW

Feel like Barbie could do a lot more than $600M. It's already at $194M from the weekend. Going to make a run for Super Mario!

https://deadline.com/2023/07/barbie-opp ... 235447983/

Crazy good Monday.

Crazy, if Barbie didn't make any more money overseas and just domestic, would end up at $776M already. This is going to fly past $1B pretty quickly it looks like.

Barbie is just one of those mega globally iconic American brands that are even known in small villages on the side of mountains like Coca-Cola or Disneyland. It's still quite something to see Hollywood get it so right and manage to turn that global name recognition into a sellable story.

Hypothetical, if they figure out a way to do a non-creepy Ronald Macdonald, there could be a fun McDonald's character movie that would be interesting. The happy meal tie in would be strong as well to toys.

I'd also 100% see a Christmas movie starring the bear from the Coca Cola commercials. They practically invented our modern interpretation of Santa Clause.

The subtle nature of making smart interesting content while not overly pandering is something every brand is thinking about post Barbie to learn from Mattel's approach.

Barbie did over 4m pounds both monday and tuesday !!! Weekdays in Europe is off the charts. Southern hemisphere is not summer and so its going to be more of a weekend movie. but Mexico was spectacular as well. I think this will come close to Mario OS. Just need Japan to also pitch in 30-40m :-)

Barbie is a knockout in Brazil, literally!!

https://www.tmz.com/2023/07/25/video-wo ... ent-fight/

Both Charlie and Empire are saying 25/12. Updates were made just now and so I think it will be very close. Spectacular for both.

Top Tuesdays:

1 Spider-Man: Far from Home $39,255,628 Jul 2, 2019
2 Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens $37,361,729 Dec 22, 2015
3 The Amazing Spider-Man $35,016,884 Jul 3, 2012
4 Avengers: Endgame $33,110,349 Apr 30, 2019
5 Spider-Man: No Way Home $31,408,657 Dec 21, 2021
6 The Lion King $30,392,565 Jul 23, 2019
7 Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens $29,528,583 Dec 29, 2015
8 Transformers $27,851,016 Jul 3, 2007
9 Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi $27,734,356 Dec 26, 2017
10 Incredibles 2 $27,059,923 Jun 19, 2018
11 Barbie $25M estimate

Seems like they've been kicking around the idea of Monopoly for a while, but I think they should try board games as an IP frontier. At the least they could make some animated movies and see what happens.

Barbie weekdays in italy are positively absurd, monday was -21% sunday and now tuesday is -12% sunday (and -7% of saturday!)...