‘Barbenheimer’ - The double bill is back!
It’s early 2021. Warner Bros have just announced that, due to the ongoing Covid pandemic, they are moving their entire film slate for the year to their streaming service, HBO Max.
Christopher Nolan, a staunch advocate of the cinematic experience, severs ties with the studio as he feels they’ve mishandled the release of his previous film Tenet. The pairing behind the Dark Knight trilogy, Inception, Interstellar - in fact, every Nolan film since 2002’s Insomnia - is no more. Nolan moves on to Universal to begin production on Oppenheimer. The film is completed and scheduled for release on the 21st of July, 2023. Warner Bros, feeling scorned by Nolan’s departure, rework their own release schedule, moving the hotly anticipated Barbie film up to open on the same day. Hence, the portmanteau Barbenheimer was born, and what started as an act of studio petulance became the cinematic event of the decade.
As someone currently studying Film Curation, this pairing initially struck me as an example of counter-programming. At first glance, the films couldn’t be more different: aesthetically or thematically. One’s a very silly movie that is occasionally very serious, the other’s a very serious movie that is occasionally very silly. The internet was quick to identify this. Jokes, memes, fan-made posters smashing the two together. Playful debates around which to see first, how to order your double bill, which would be the better film, ran wild. Film Twitter was full of more Kenergy/ Sad Cillian Murphy memes than the algorithm knew what to do with. The 21st of July became something more than a release date. It was now the culmination of months of anticipation, viral marketing and genuine intrigue and excitement.
While their difference was certainly what drew people to them, Barbenheimer has sustained from a niche internet meme to a cultural moment because of the similarities that people have managed to draw between them. Both films offer a point of difference in the current Hollywood landscape harking back to filmmaking techniques of old, such as the rear-projection in Barbie or the practical explosions of Oppenheimer. There’s an inherent nostalgia to these devices that remind us of when these novelties didn’t feel like novelties. There is an odd sense of comfort to be found in watching both of these films, a potent feeling of being safe in the hands of master craftspeople at the top of their games.
The results of Barbenheimer have been massive, not only for these two films, but for the industry at large. Warner Bros might have moved Barbie’s release date to spite Nolan, but in reality they did him a huge favour. The symbiotic relationship that’s formed between the two films has been hugely beneficial to their box office returns. There are people who wouldn’t have seen Oppenheimer, but did because of Barbenheimer, and vice versa for Barbie. For a 3 hour long, R-rated biopic about ‘the father of the atomic bomb’ to make $500 million, especially in a still recovering post-pandemic landscape, would have been unthinkable without Barbenheimer. As for Barbie, at time of writing, it has just passed $1 billion at the box office, making it the highest grossing female directed film of all time, and it’s showing no signs of slowing down. These numbers are the healthiest the box office has seen since lockdown, and it’s no exaggeration to say that Barbenheimer has played a crucial role in saving cinemas across the UK and the world.
I am intrigued to see what lessons the industry will learn from Barbenheimer. A key takeaway should be that, at a time where audiences are tiring of cookie-cutter franchise entries and lazy sequels, there is an appetite for originality. Perhaps not “original” in terms of ideas, given that the two films are based on a book and a multi-million dollar brand respectively, but director-driven stories that we haven’t seen before, which clearly still have a place in cinemas. No doubt people will try and recreate this great experiment with future releases. Eagle-eyed film fans have already spotted that the upcoming Saw X and Paw Patrol sequel are slated for the same release date (Saw Patrol anyone?). But there is a real feeling that no matter who tries to imitate Barbenheimer in the future, it will never happen this organically again.