After the iconic opening day clash between Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer and Greta Gerwig's Barbie on Friday, which triggered the Barbenheimer phenomenon on social media, the verdict is finally out. Nolan's epic film on the 'father of the atomic bomb' has outperformed Barbie at the box office.
According to reports, while Oppenheimer collected over 13 crores on opening day in India, Barbie managed to rake in only about Rs 5-5.5 crore. Nolan's eponymous film featuring Cillian Murphy has delivered the biggest opening for a Hollywood film in India this year, surpassing Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, which minted Rs 12.5 crore on its opening day, Indian Express reported.
Meanwhile in the US, Warner Bros' Barbie is eyeing $68-70 million on opening day, including Wednesday and Thursday previews, and looks set to register the best opening of the year with $150 million, Deadline reported. Oppenheimer, in the US, is close behind with a sizeable $75 million according to early estimates.
Oppenheimer, which follows the life of US theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer who led the controversial Manhattan Project during World War II, received great reviews from Indian critics on Friday. Besides Murphy, the film features a stellar cast of Emily Blunt, Robert Downey Jr, Matt Damon and Florence Pugh among others.
Gerwig's Barbie, centered around the stylish Mattel doll, features Margot Robbie in the title role and Ryan Gosling as her boyfriend Ken. Set in the seemingly-perfect world of Barbie, the film takes a turn when the iconic doll faces an existential crisis and decides to step out into the real world. Much before its release, the film even triggered a vibrant fashion trend—Barbiecore—where everything from outfits to lip colour and eye shadow were the perfect shade of Barbie pink.