A very odd rivalry is being spun by social media nitwits. As you know, Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” and Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” will be going head to head on July 21st, 2023. Both films released their trailers last week.
Film Twitter users, at least the most vocal ones, seem to firmly be camped on the side of Gerwig’s film — gee, I wonder why?
BuzzFeed proclaimed the trailer is proof that “Barbie” is the next blockbuster by using tweets from random people to pump their theory forward. Article after article has been hyping up Gerwig’s film, with even Yahoo claiming it could “launch a franchise to compete with” Cameron’s ‘Avatar.’
These people are insane.
“Barbie” will never make anything close to ‘Avatar.’ Even just thinking about that possibility makes you look delusional. And so it goes, story after story has propped up the “Barbie” train these past few weeks, and, yes, the teaser did make it look delightfully meta. But who are we kidding here? There was maybe 3 seconds of footage shown.
It’s come to the point where Universal’s CEO has been asked by Business Insider if he would consider changing the “Oppenheimer” release date so as to not compete against “Barbie” … Shouldn’t it be the other way around?
Fact of the matter is that the “Oppenheimer” trailer has outperformed “Barbie” on Twitter and YouTube. Outside the media-verse, there is a lot more interest in Nolan’s epic than “Barbie.” Nolan’s film has 6.7M views in 15 hours, sad Gerwig’s 5.4M in 3 days.
Gerwig has been very clear about her movie very much being a feminist odyssey. Co-star Ferrell even told the Wall Street Journal that the film addressed how women are treated in society by the patriarchy. Gerwig’s track record as a filmmaker (“Lady Bird” and “Little Women”) will heed massive critical support for the film’s box-office, but will that be enough?
I’m very much looking forward to “Barbie,” I mean, how can I not? However, a full media apparatus pushing this movie down our throats for the next six months will be incredibly annoying to witness.
Of course, we all know the rule: take these reactions with a grain of salt rather than treating them as gospel. Still, I will say that the film tested like gangbusters earlier this year, and Lionsgate clearly has confidence.