The Race to Recreate Barbenheimer 

Have you seen Barbie or Oppenheimer? Which did you prefer? Trade is offering my viewers a free bag of coffee with any subscription at www.drinktrade.com/captainmidnight

The next Barbenheimer will be the equivalent of "how do you do fellow kids?" and we will all get second hand embarrassment.

The one thing that’s guaranteed to happen is that studios will learn the wrong lessons from Barbenheimer and embarrass themselves trying to replicate the hype.

The Animal Crossing/Doom and Barbenheimer events were some extremely rare events. They gotta happen naturally.

How to create the next Barbenheimer: 1. The movies have contrasting tone 2. They have a good amount of target audience overlap 3. They are equally interesting/appealing 4. Both would be hits individually If any of these criteria aren't met, I can't see something like this happening

It'll probably be like the Morbius meme, where fans run with it and the moment brands try to do it it'll fail spectacularly and the companies will drop it immediately

I feel like so much of the excitement of Barbenheimer came simply from there being two major theatrical releases in one weekend, and neither of them involved superheroes.

I think the biggest point of success for both movies and what studios fail to see is: passion. Both movies were unapologetically passionate for the stories they want to sell, it wasn't so much about marketing ip or empty scripts just trying to fill seats. They really wanted to tell a unique story and make something beyond themselves.

Not everyone has a Marvel shirt in their wardrobe, but a lot of people had something pastel to wear for Barbie, or something nice and black to wear for Oppenheimer. It just worked on a level where it was accessible to such a wide range of audience.

The irony of this cinematic moment is how it began as a middle finger. I’m pretty sure WB dropped Barbie the same day as Oppenheimer to spite Nolan, yet they end up complimenting each other unusually well.

The actual message we are sending to Hollywood from the success of these films is this: "For gods sakes, give us more variety in movies. Take chances." Hollywood will interpret this as: "Make more Barbie and Oppenheimer-like movies."

Despite Barbie and Oppenhiemer being so different on paper, they are very similar. Both were big budget live action films made by auteur directors stacked with a list actors with a message of soical commentary. Thats why Barbenhiemr worked, it was appealing to the same audeince just with different athstetics

I was already interested in seeing both films (especially Oppenheimer, I had to see that on a big screen), but all the silly memes convinced me to do a double feature day and watch them both in theaters. It’s been a while since I did that and it was a lot of fun! It was kinda mind blowing how, even though they were completely different films, they had alot of similarities too and had great synergy with one another. (Both passion projects by directors, both opted for more practical effects over CGI, they even touched upon some similar ideas if you really think about it (how a creator’s creation has effected the world was the big one that stood out to me) ). Overall, if ever I pick up the Blu-rays, I’m definitely doing both films together again. …I’m also 100% convinced Hollywood will be taking the wrong lessons from this.

Barbenheimer worked as Barbie was still "adult" enough that it appealed to the masses rather than just little girls, and Oppenheimer was restrained enough in its depiction of the horror of the atomic bomb that it didn't frighten away more sensitive individuals. Different as the movies were in tone, they overlapped in audience enough that many people wanted to see both, and they weren't really polar opposites. "Saw Patrol" won't work. One is a graphically violent horror movie, the other is a cartoon aimed at preschoolers. Those really are two completely different demographics with virtually no overlap.

Barbenheimer can't be recreated. What the studios need to do is just make damn good movies that people want to see. Do that and the audiences excited to see them will create their own organic viral phenomena celebrating them from time to time. The form it takes is something no one can predict, not even the audiences.

What Hollywood shouldn’t learn is that dual releases aren’t gonna work the same as this one did. This was truly like magic man lol. A year of promo basically from memes, the movies being vastly different from each other, both having star studded casts, one is part of a giant IP (Barbie), one is directed by a guy who people would line up to watch direct paint dry, etc, this was the perfect stage for success. Seriously. And it can’t be replicated the same. But, knowing Hollywood, they’ll try it, and completely miss the point of why this worked so well like always.

It was a once in a lifetime event. You just HAD to be there. While I saw Barbie 3 times, I did the Barbenheimer double feature just once. It was perfect.

I loved it when Doom and Animal Crossing had their moment of unity, with fans of both franchises being really supportive towards one another. The crossover meme were so wholesome.

In the words of Peter Griffin: "Love is like a fart. If you have to force it, it's probably crap." I think that wisdom applies here.

Barbie is way more of an interesting icon than any other toy on Mattel’s list of films ahead. When i first heard there’s gonna be a BARBIE movie directed by GRETA GERWIG, my little corner of the internet started speculating and theorizing on what the story could be and we were very focused on if and how it was going to tackle feminism and Barbie’s relationship to it. It had such intrigue because of the pop cultural status of the toy itself as what it symbolizes and what it means. You don’t really get that with say, the magic 8 ball. Nobody has written an analysis on the magic 8 ball from a sociopolitical standpoint. Im willing to be proven wrong if these films turn out to actually be great but as of now it seems they won’t have the same kind of hype or intrigue Barbie did

This was the movie version of Doom Eternal x Animal Crossing New Horizons and in the videogame industry it hasn't been recreated since. I think the dichotomy between the two releases is what makes it so iconic?

the barbenheimer phenomenon honestly makes me wanna support the sag and wga strikes even more because look what happened when you allow amazing writers to write and actors to act and they should be paid diligently 😔

3:40 - "These were movies that people were actually excited about seeing." That's the key to it all.

The idea of Mattel trying to make movies looks actually kind of interesting. Like the 8 ball movie, it looks so weird that it might actually work.

One thing that makes Barbie stand out from other Mattel toy IPs is that it has a long history of successful films, which a lot of people loved. The brand legitimately had a cinematic background, which i wonder if that helped audiences buy in. Things like Uno and Hot wheels don't have that, they only have the actual plastic toys

Barbenheimer has happened before, kind of, with Doom Eternal and Animal Crossing: New Horizons spawning a bunch of attention for both properties when their release dates matched. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the "Isabelle hunts demons while the Doom Slayer catches butterflies" images helped move a bunch of copies of the games. The key, however, is that both games were highly anticipated on their own already. Nobody was doing similar memes when *checks Wikipedia* Moss: Book II and Tetris Effect: Connected released on the same day this year.

The whole way this played out. It's incredible. You are never gonna get this natural buzz again. Lightning is outta the bottle.

I think the great thing about the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon was that it was a great weekend for everyone regardless. I went on the Sunday with my younger sisters on the condition we see Oppenheimer first but it was clear everyone was there for Barbie, if not both. Couples, groups of guys and nerds in black and pinkish dolled up women and girl getups galore into the main halls and screenings. It was an eventful weekend.

Tbh it's really beautiful to me how people around the world so spontaneously joined an event that aesthetically combined an ironic performativity of the feminine (going to see Barbie in pink) with an ironic performative of the masculine (going to see Oppenheimer in black or in a suit)

The ingredients for Barbenheimer are as follows Two movies with big, interested and prebuilt audiences (not stuff that's gonna have to win people over while it's playing on theaters) The two audiences are widely different people, but generally respectful and quiet. Even Christopher Nolans most passionate fans don't aggressively stan for him like some people do for say, videogame consoles Meme capacity. The overall vibe of both movies has to be clashing to a laughable degree. I'm talking the time Doom and Animal Crossing released at the same time A little push from some key people involved in either project (like Cillian Murphy going to watch Barbie and whatnot) You can't manufacture this. Hollywood is so out of touch that they completely forgot WHY super heroes are good entertainment

I think barbenheimer was probably the biggest breath of fresh air the cinemas have seen in a while

I walked out of Barbie thinking “Oh my god, how did this get made? How is this a real thing I just watched” we need more movies like that. But studios won’t learn a lesson so easy like that

I feel like one of the big parts of the interest for these movies is that they feel like movies that people (importantly the directors) really wanted to make. This reveals a certain sense of passion and the story being something wanting to be told, that really makes it feel like actual movies again, instead of the corporate soulless cash grabs that many movies feel like nowadays.

You're right about the Barbie Oppenheimer phenomenon happening organically. But now studios are going to try their worst to manufacture that phenomenon over and over again. Also, I wouldn't doubt that with the success of Barbie, Disney tries to buy Mattel.

If Daniel Kaluuya’s R-rated Barney movie is any indication, I believe Mattel’s strategy for their movies will be just giving people the IPs and letting them do whatever they want with them. That could actually be awesome.

6:21 Barbenheimer literally started as a meme between film fans that slowly bled over into the general public, sort of like how A24 became slowly became a staple for hipsters after they had a super amazing run of arthouse movies in 2016 and 2017. These filmmakers had fanbases that were already invested in the outcome of these projects, and wanted to see them succeed. The Rise of Gru gentle minions thing was so short-lived because the movie wasn't very good, and it was based out of people who weren't *actually* passionate to see it in the first place. And it led to studios re-releasing Morbius and having it fail for a second time, but that was literally a meme born out of no one wanting to see the movie. But Puss in Boots: The Last Wish and the new Spider-Verse had memes that were circulated super heavily because those movies were astoundingly impressive and got people talking! I'm not even a fan of the MCU, but No Way Home is another example of how memes and speculation led to a movie being extremely hyped beforehand because it was based out of a franchise and characters people actually gave a shit about! Quality, originality, and genuine investment really does win when it comes to memes and internet culture affecting box office, and I do think a lot of studios are taking notice of that in how much animation styles have shifted in the past five years alone thanks to Spider-Verse and the fact Barbenheimer has been as impactful as it is! Some studios may definitely take some wrong lessons but honestly, I see the future of cinema being pretty bright thanks to how things are shaping up

I think the reason why barbenheimer worked was because most people already wanted to see both movies and when it became a trend to see both movies on the same day it wasn’t hard to see the appeal.

I think Mattel overestimates the cultural capital of their other products. Barbie's ubiquity propels it beyond the realm of toyline and into a legitimately iconic piece of Americana. You can map real life social progress and trends through Barbie lore. The same is simply not true of polly pocket

Full Barbenheimer analysis. I remember the progression of memes that led up to Barbenheimer: 1. Started off with Christian Bale/American Psycho memes that were trending for a while 2. Nov-Dec 2022 Individual memes of Oppenheimer and Barbie emerged (I recall when it first broke out that Nolan doesn't want to use CGI memes on that came out - one that stood out is a photo of Hugh Jackman after a nuclear explosion with a caption: "cameraman of Oppenheimer") 3. Jan-Feb 2023 Evolved into: Photos of American Psycho, Casino and other photos of men in suits with captions like: "4 tickets to barbie please" 4. Feb-Mar 2023 Evolved into: Random memes where clips of Christian Bale going crazy, Walking Dead's "You expect me to believe that?" memes emerged with captions like: "When they run out of tickets to Barbie" 5. March-April Was the earliest I could find where Barbie and Oppenheimer were mentioned in the same meme: It was a photo of Aunt May praying in Sam Raimi's Spiderman 1 with a caption "Trying to Watch Barbie movie when the Oppenheimer screening is playing right next to me" and then a photo of Aunt May's apartment exploding 6. April-May 2023 Evolved into "Two tickets to Barbie and Oppenheimer please" with other memes of (seemingly badass) characters in suits walking like Saul Goodman, Joker, Patrick Bateman and other characters with a caption: "Walking into Barbie after watching Oppenheimer" and the likes 7. May-June 2023 Ryan Gosling "Literally me" memes emerged 8. May-Jul 2023 Memes of pink explosions and memes with twists on "I am become death" quote emerged 9. Jul 2023 Barbenheimer memes officially became a thing after such a persistent and natural build up - mainstream media started picking up on memes as the movies became more relevant (due to their release dates) 10. Jul 2023 Cast of both movies started getting asked questions if they will watch the other movie and what not due to Barbenheimer memes as well as photo campaigns of Greta Gerwig and Margot buying tickets to Oppenheimer and Mission Impossible 7 ^These are based on posts I liked/saved on Instagram, individual memes I have shared with my friends and memes shared with me directly. I went to go through the dates and that's the data I have. Yours could be different depending on how your algorithm treats you. People may not recall, but the Barbenheimer memes, or the idea of watching both at the same time (since it wasn't actually called that back then), actually had the seeds planted a long time ago. It was only after the release dates were much closer that the memes re-emerged and became more relevant and continued to evolve naturally. More importantly, the memes basically were riding off an already trending meme of Christian Bale/American Psycho where we had pictures of men from American Psycho in busines suits asking if they could get tickets to Barbie. A lot of memes I've seen showed up around March-April were eventually reintroduced in June-July and had other memes build on them and their hype. Looking at that progression, I highly doubt that a studio can manufacture that same level of hype again, especially considering external factors and other previous trending memes. Factors like Nolan being attached to the Oppenheimer movie, Margot Robbie attached to the Barbie movie indicated that people actually wanted to watch these movies in the first place. Even if studios can somehow understand how memes evolve as well as which ones will become popular, they may end up succeeding in recreating some level of hype from memes (in addition to traditional marketing of course) - but without a solid foundation or more specifically, without an actual desire from fans to watch the movie(s) in the first place, then we will end up with a situation like Morbius where the joke is on studios but they just don't get it.

I don't think we'll ever see something quite like Barbenheimer anytime soon. The idea of having these two in the same week is wholesome and we can see people have been enjoying such trend.

saw Oppenheimer, loved it. felt like the first time in many years that a great, timeless piece of cinematic art was shown in theaters, and one that i had gone to see in a theater.

You hit it on the head. You had two directors that have never made a bad film, putting out movies on the same day… that’s it… that’s the special sauce.

I think what made Barbieheimer such a perfect storm was the fact that the initial meme seemed to be more laughing about how these two movies had radically different subject matter and styling. Like on paper they are hilariously different. But after watching them they do feel...connected somehow. Not only are they both well acted and well made, they both have very strong emotional cores to their stories that stay with you after you leave the theater. Yes, they are radically different. But with both I saw a dedication to the craft of making a movie that is noticeably absent in many other modern movies. The lack of CGI, meaning real sets, real props, real...bombs (lol) made me realize how much I missed seeing that kind of commitment to art and a story. Sadly I don't think this is the takeaway studios will have. But it did make me realize that people aren't tired of movies by any means. They're tired of shallow stories that exist more for a bottom line then for the making of the story itself.

I find it interesting how Barbenheimer memes started completely differently. At first the jokes were that this would be a “loyalty test” to see if boyfriends would give up watching Oppenheimer to watch Barbie with their girlfriends. I just find it interesting how the memes shifted so quickly.

That Magic 8-Ball Thriller sounds so amazingly goofy, like some kind of twisted AI Death Note, that I… actually really want to see it.

Rule #1: Most, if not all, studios will always learn THE WRONG LESSON from a successful movie.

I think that the reason for Barbenheimer success was that they were both familiar and new, in a way the other big movies this year weren't able to reach. Transformers, Fast&Furious, Mission Impossible, even Indiana Jones, these all fell like "oh, they made another one". While with Barbenheimer, they were easy to grok concept "Barbie/creation of the atomic Bomb" that audience had not seen before. Same thing for Super Mario Bros.

in its core. barbie and her oppy had great writing and were fresh projects people were excited to see. this isn’t necessarily a rare phenomenon but not one that can so easily replicated artificially.

People weren’t clamoring for just any movie about Barbie or Oppenheimer, they were excited about the directors being given a seeming green light to make an original movie using their unique voices

Barbenheimer works because the movies stand in perfect contrast to each in terms of visuals and tone, while they both have star directors with great movies in their filmography, stellar casts, well-written scripts, and lots of passion from the costume and set design departments. Both Greta Gerwig and Christopher Nolan would be able to draw in a sizeable crowd with an original title, as could Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, Cillian Murphy, and Robert Downey Jr. But most importantly for both films, is that they are both geared towards adult audiences (yes, some parents bring their kids to watch Barbie, but still). Saw Patrol won't really work, because there probably aren't anyone who wants to watch Saw, who also wants to watch Paw Patrol, or the other way around. It would have been a funny meme, if someone other than the studio behind those movies pointed it out.

Barbie and Oppenheimer didn't become popular because of Barbenheimer, Barbenheimer became popular because those movies were popular

Saw both, and I think as someone who wants to see something new and different, it was a breath of fresh air. From loving Interstellar, and wanting something that had more stakes, and deeper meaning; to wanting something that was funny but did not have a romance or super hero baseline to it was why I liked watching Barbie!

American Girl is such a weird thing for Mattel to add to their lineup. They already made movies for the popular characters, and they still make them for the limited edition Girl of the Year dolls!

The funniest thing about Barbenheimer is that WB purposefully set Barbie's release date for the same day as Oppenheimer just out of bitterness against Nolan in the hopes that Barbie being released the same day would hurt Oppenheimer's performance at the box office. Instead, the internet made the Barbenheimer meme which undoubtedly helped boost Oppenheimer's box office performance past expectations and all around, the reverse of what WB was expecting happened, as the two movie's same release date just helped Oppenheimer more than it did Barbie.

Barbenheimer works because it happened by complete accident. The internet saw these two movies about existentialism, but with completely different tones, and ran with the humor of them coexisting. If another Barbenheimer is to happen, it needs the same conditions.

the only trend i want to keep is wearing themed outfits! ive seen a couple anime movies in theaters, so cosplay is common at those showings, but i love seeing the enthusiasm from mainstreamer audiences.

Personally, I think no matter how hard a studio tries they’re not going to be able to recapture genuine hype for two writer/director driven films. Studios need to focus on telling a real story. That is what audiences want

The Doom Eternal + Animal Crossing release walked so that Barbenheimer could run. The similarities these two releases share is that the games AND the movies were anticipated releases on their own. Even before the announced release dates. It helps that they have such opposite aesthetics as well. Doom eternal has killing demons with blood and gore. Animal crossing has cute animals building a community together. The internet loved the idea of swapping main characters and memed it to hell. Barbenheimer has the same thing.

God I love when corporate social media tries to get in on the fun. So painful.

The problem with recreating it is that Barbenheimer took off in part due to how good each movie was individually as well. The themes contrasting was a key part, but the movies needed to be something worth watching too. Saw X and Paw Patrol won't do that, not just because they'll both be mid, but because nobody wants to unironically sit through an actual made for kids movie, as well as horror being a genre many don't like, let alone the 10th movie in that series.

I honestly think that the reason Barbenheimer not only existed but was successful was because both movies had: 1) A clear aesthetic 2) Two aesthetics that were contrasting If both movies have a similar aesthetic or "vibe" (or just dont have one at all), I don't think something like Barbenheimer can happen between them imo

15 years ago Mama Mia and the Dark Knight opened on the same weekend and both were big hits.

The build up to the release of these films has been a long process. The release date for both were announced at least a year in advance and the cast lists being drip-fed to build the anticipation. Indeed, Empire magazine here in the UK have been reporting on it almost constantly since 2021. This is lightning in a bottle and any attempts to recreate it will be hastily put together poorly executed.

studios planning a "serious movie" and a "happy movie" together is probably the best thing to happen out of barbenheimer cause it will mean will be getting a little more diversity and variety when they line up their movies together to try and recreate a similar event with simiar movie contrasts

I saw Barbie once and Oppenheimer twice. The build up for these movies simply cannot be replicated. Both movies have director pedigree but also the cast names. Robbie as Barbie is just casting perfection and that alone makes people want to check the movie out but when Ryan Gosling was announced as Ken and those first images were leaked, internet went crazy and the memes started to boost the hype for the movie. That's one key in my opinion. How memeable Barbie was since the start. On Oppenheimer's side tho, that's all on Nolan. No one was waiting that movie for RDJ or Cillian Murphy or the Einstein cameo, it was all Nolan and both Oppenheimer and Barbie complemented each other beautifully, organically and what's most important, spawn the memes that has flooded the internet for months making its release date truly an event. Also both movies didn't suck and that helped a ton.

Regarding SawPatrol, it feels more like a jab at Barbenhiemer from both Paramount and Lionsgate (though Lionsgate apparently did it first) than an attempt at recreating the hype of Barbenhiemer

I think what made Barbenheimer work so well was how much of an accident it was that they released on the same day. Two acclaimed directors making films that could not be more stylistically different, being released on the same day, and both being critical and commercial successes. That cannot be recreated, and I fear that studios won't get that. What studios should learn from Barbenheimer is to give directors more freedom to make the films they want to make. Take chances again with new and upcoming filmmakers.

The main thing that movie studios never seem to learn is that their own involvement usually kills the hype that people have for the things they produce. I remember when the MCU was something that people got excited about, and now, mainly because the studios kept pushing and pushing it so hard into people's faces, now people hate the MCU. And superhero movies in general. Barbenheimer took off because it was both silly and spontaneous, and people enjoy that feeling of social cohesion around something light-hearted. The moment studios try to manufacture that, people will respond negatively, because we don't like corporations, and we don't like being manipulated to feel good by them. The moment you try to force that, you've already ensured it will never happen.

You are 100% right about IP driven movies making directors losing their uniqueness and quirks. Guy Ritchie is one of the more unique directors with his own sense of style and moviemaking. It was visible in King Arthur, The Gentlemen, Snatch, and other movies of his. But Aladdin didn't feel like a Guy Ritchie movie. It has none of his quirks.

The case with Paw Patrol and Saw X is that it fits into two extremes that general audiences would probably be disinterested in. On one hand, you have an animated movie about a show for toddlers. And on the other, an over convoluted horror film which people only really watch for the gore.

Of course studios will try to recreate this, thinking they can pull magic because something they don't understand worked - I'll never forget when Morbius came back to the theatres!

Barbie and Oppemheimer were both movies made for a similar enough audience just in different genres (one being a comedy and the other a drama) Both movies that can be watched and enjoyed by adult or adolescent audiences who enjoy movies. Meanwhile paw patrol and saw are just completely different demographics. One is a kids movie with not much going for it, the other is the tenth installment in an extremely long running franchise that basically only fans of the series will go watch focusing on tension and body horror. These films simply are not compatible in any way

You can't even have fun online anymore without studios trying to meddle into it

Barbenheimer absolutely was organic, as you say, I'm highly doubtful any studio would be able to artifically recreate it. If only they would take away the real reason Barbenheimer translated from meme to hit: both movies are fresh and exciting worlds from good directors with a vision.

Regardless of which we prefer, I think we can agree that this was the best weekend for movies in a very long time.

Took my daughters to Barbie and we loved it, and from the sound of it, the rest of the packed theatre did too. It’s the most fun I’ve had at the movies in years. Not necessarily the best movie I’ve seen in this time period, but it was absolutely the most fun I’ve had going to the theatre in at least a decade. It was probably the liveliest theatre my kids have ever been in. However, between tickets and snacks, it cost me nearly $100 to take myself and my two kids to a single movie. That’s not really the kind of money I have to spend right now. Plus, my kids originally vetoed it when they found out we’d have to go to the theatre to watch it instead of being able to see it at home. We’re all glad that we eventually decided to go, but it’s getting increasingly rare for us to be able to do this. I’m pretty sure this is the same case for most families right now, and it’s ridiculous to assume we’re going to be equally excited to spend this kind of time and money to see Uno or the 40th Marvel movie or whatever.

1. Be creative 2. Make us think 3. Surprise me with something that feels old and make it new again 4. Hire great actors 5. Give them a great script 6. Don’t be afraid to take chances and make fun of things 7. Leave room for interpretation 8. Highlight things that feel big but in different ways - Barbie is a huge nostalgia tug, Atomic bomb is an iconic and complicated invention 9. Teach us something 10. Find fresh voices 11. Don’t stop the second a film fails. Keep throwing stuff at the wall

I find the Barbenheimer phenomenon really interesting since we also saw a version of it in gaming pretty recently in 2020 with the release of Animal Crossing and Doom. There is something about two things that are polar opposite being released on the same day that generate this natural energy online.

Just to take a dimension of how big this weekend was, in my country (argentina) barbie became the biggest pre-sale in history, surpasing spiderman no way home. Sadly, not many people are understanding Oppenheimer is about...I've seen many people that think is an emo movie because of tik tok and I think that will take some people off the movie theater. So, this trend it's a double bladed knife

Idk, I'm kinda down for Saw Patrol. "Chase, what tool do we need boy?" *pulls out a reverse beartrap

Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Doom Eternal were two opposite releases that attracted one another. They were both hyper anticipated AAA games that people were genuinely excited for. Fans of one were leaving their comfort zones to try the other, it led to a massive boom in fan art for both games, and even if you didn't care about that stuff, at the end of the day you still had two enjoyable games that combined appealed to a wide swath of people to ease the stir crazy tension of quarantine. If it was some sterile corporate plan to push these games together, nobody would've looked twice at it.

I have been saying if Hollywood wants to make real money they should create a movie that ends with the main character having to make a truly tough choice. Then make two movies that show the course of options that happen and have the fans fight. Tell the fans that whatever movie gets the most money is how the third movie concluding the trilogy will follow that storyline.

I feel like a lot of companies are just going to try and focus on pairing opposites together but I think that part of the appeal of Barbinheimer and Doom Crossing is that there's a surprisingly large overlap between the potential audiences between those opposite projects. Animal Crossing has widespread appeal from all kinds of gamers, and that includes a lot of more 'hardcore' gamers that would be hype for Doom Eternal as well. So there's a fairly large overlap there. Similarly Barbie is clearly appealing to a lot of people and Oppenheimer is a Nolan film so it was always gonna be huge. I think that part of the punchline is that people actually wanna go see both projects. By comparison "Saw Patrol" feels cringe because the overlap between people who would unironically want to go watch a Paw Patrol Movie and the people that would want to go see a gorefest like Saw, is probably close to 0 save for a handful of parents who are taking their kids to one out of obligation. And even that's kinda stretching the point.

I honestly wouldn’t have seen either if it wasn’t for barbenheimer. Like I was vaguely interested in both but not enough to see them individually. But with the pure silliness of the trend it felt worth it and I ended up really enjoying both films

I think Barbenheimer happened because both titles hold equally significant intrinsic meaning inside our collective knowledge. One is a story about the creation of the strongest weapon humans have come up with so far. The other is about a line of toy dolls that has accompanied us through two or more generations. Barbenheimer would be hard to artificially recreate because, in essence, you probably need that level of opposing driving ideas from both movies on top of releasing at the same time and having both production teams equally talented and experienced.

They both had amazing openings.

I know the movies are very different from each other in narrative/tone/context, with Barbie playing with 80s - 2000s aesthetics & Opp more grounded in the 1930s-40s, but both the Barbie doll + the Bomb essentially capture integral aspects of the dawn of the post-WWII "Atomic Age"-era zeitgeist as concepts/conceptualized objects, & represent this space for new paths of human potential carved out by crises. Both work on "idea maps" effortlessly, becoming the central hubs of wheels supporting lots of other different ideas + imagery, radiating from them like spokes. They are inherently self-contradictory, in so many ways, esp in both needing WWII to be birthed, while representing a total break in the public consciousness with what had come before. Actually, the 2 movies make absolute sense to whether fit this moment + each other. Saw Patrol just...isn't that.

What a well-timed and necessary video :D. Thank you!

Barbenheimer is as iconic as Mario & Luigi, the "im death, destroyer of Barbie worlds" line is cherry on top

I remember listening to Yahtzee from Zero Punctuation talk a while back about how the video game industry tries to convince its audience that they want what makes them more money when in the end of the day, people just want good games. And the same words ring true for movies too. This push to try and find the infinite money generator. "Oh if we just focus on well known IPs that's a surefire success.", "Oh we'll make a whole cinematic universe, that way people will watch everything.", this push to try and find the way in which they can guarantee success. What strikes me as kind of funny is that how much this distracts from making a quality film from a creative director that makes a good movie that people actually want to watch. People will always want good movies, but business heads think they can somehow find trends and use that to somehow hack the audience to make more money.

I feel like the last thing the paw patrol people should be doing is linking their movie with a horror movie. That’s just a recipe for angry parents LOL

Saw Patrol (from what I understand at least) is just another weird coincidence, but they're definitely leaning into it more than they should. In a perfect world, double-releases like this would become an industry standard, but no studio would ever admit to doing it publicly. Since big companies can do what they want, though, they'll most likely be trying to jump on the trend until it fails.

The underlining thing was that Barbenheimer were helmed by well regarded creative teams that seemed to care about the films they made. Not only did the public latch onto the stark contrast between the films but were intrigued by 2 studios releasing their best efforts on the same day. The 10th Saw movie doesn’t scream effort. Barbenheimer reminded us that movies can try and can be different.

This is pretty timely for me since I saw Barbie earlier today (I didn't 100% love it, but it was a lot of fun). I could see a repeat of Barbenheimer happen, but I don't think it'll work if people try to make it happen. If it does happen again, I think it'd have to be unintentional, be audience driven, and have both films be eagerly anticipated/well known about

A hot wheels movie sounds interesting enough to get me interest in seeing it out of curiosity, and a well written thriller/horror movie about the 8 ball sounds awesome

The Barbenheimer incident kinda reminds me of when Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Doom Eternal released on the same date

I think that Mattel is going overboard, but I have to admit - the Magic 8 Ball horror flick sounds rad. There aren't many PG-13 horror movies, so it could be a great gateway into the genre for younger viewers.

the problem with ‘sawpatrol’ is that they’re not both incredibly marketed movies with lots of previous hype created by amazing directors. barbie and oppenheimer are both great films on their own with a surprisingly similar target audience. without the barbienheimer trend, i probably wouldn’t have gone to see oppenheimer (tickets are expensive) but i was happy to as i know that nolan is a great director and the movie has a lot of acclaimed actors so i’d enjoy it nonetheless. with sawpatrol, there’s not that much of a hype for the saw movies anymore seeing as there’s been tons of them already. and paw patrol is literally just catered towards toddlers, that’s their only audience. they’re vastly different films who the average audience of one would never go to the other, no matter how big the hype on social media (toddlers would get traumatised, saw fans would get bored etc). however, barbie and oppenheimer are both emotionally mature films with great directors that have been hyped for a few years. that’s the main difference between them, if anyone reads this thanks for reading my little rant

I really do hope when we come out of these strikes that Hollywood can go back to cultivating an environment for marketing the next crop of super talented filmmakers. I don't want people to say "You wanna see the new Marvel/DC/Mattel/etc movie?" I want them to say "You wanna see the new Peele/Safdie Bros/Gerwig/Chazelle/etc move?" I miss when people would go see a movie because it was Spielberg or Scorsese or Coppola or De Palma.

If it hasn't happened already, marketing programs in college and university will one day have a meme economics course looking into generating buzz naturally, using famous examples like Tide Pods, Minions 2 and Barbenhiemer.