All eyes on the box-office this weekend.
“Barbie” is turning into this behemoth of a blockbuster. Projections are now saying a $158 million weekend awaits Greta Gerwig’s movie. It’ll be giving ‘Super Mario Bros’ a run for its money as the 2023 box-office champ.
Meanwhile, the early numbers for “Oppenheimer” also keep going up. It’s now set for a $65 million opening. This would make it the 15th highest-grossing opening for an R-rated film in history.
The rest of the field has Cruise’s ‘Mission: Impossible 7’ dropping heavily with just a $25 million and right behind it, lo and behold, “Sound of Freedom” at a $21 million estimate. The latter has legs, and then some.
Did Paramount f*ck up Mission Impossible’s release? Or are we just getting sick and tired of this franchise? It’s still delivering good movies, but that doesn’t seem to be enough for many audiences.
Just a word of caution: you will likely notice a lot of walkouts at “Oppenheimer” screenings, from “Barbie” fans who wanted to be part of the ‘Barbenheimer’ trend. I saw plenty at my screening of Nolan’s film yesterday. It’s a dense arthouse film masquerading as a blockbuster. There’s no way the mainstream catches on to this film, which is kind of miraculous that it’ll be making that much money this weekend.
Fun fact: the last time we had two films with a 50+ million opening at the box-office was in 2013 — that’s when “Monsters University” ($82.4M) and “World War Z” ($66.4M) were released in theaters.
Edward Berger seems to have settled on what comes next. His Lance Armstrong biopic, starring Austin Butler, is now holding casting calls, with production eyed for January.