The twin releases of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” has broken records for cinema chain Vue International.
COO Claire Arksey described the “Barbenheimer” box office performance as the chain’s “best week ever” and the period following the films’ release as a “record-breaking week,” which beat Vue’s International’s previous overall weekly admissions record by 40% across eight European markets.
Arksey said that in Poland, Vue cinemas had their best week on record and in the Netherlands, their cinemas had beaten their previous admissions record set during the “Lion King” opening week in 2019. Vue U.K. and Ireland beat its previous highest admissions week by 20%, which was set during the “Skyfall” opening week in 2012.
“The second box office weekend for both films also showed signs of strong word of mouth, with ‘Barbie’ and ‘Oppenheimer’ admissions going up week on week in markets like Germany and the Netherlands. This is a strong indication that these films will have a sizeable audience in cinemas throughout the rest of the summer,” Arksey said.
“And there’s more to come. We’re looking forward to seeing our customers continue to enjoy the big screen experience over the summer and beyond as other great titles are released this year: ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem,’ ‘Meg 2: The Trench,’ ‘Napoleon’ and ‘The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes,'” Arksey added.
The records tumbled at Odeon across the U.K. and Ireland as well, selling more than two million tickets for the two films in 10 days of release, breaking records set by “Avengers: Endgame” and “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” in the process. July 2023 was also Odeon’s biggest box office month since reopening post-pandemic – the chain reported nearly four million customers this month, beating the record set in October 2021 by the releases of “No Time To Die,” “Dune” and “Venom: Let There Be Carnage.”
Suzie Welch, Odeon’s interim managing director for U.K. and Ireland, said: “What a week. We have been thrilled to see guests continue to flock to our cinemas in the past week to experience the unique directorial visions of Greta Gerwig and Christopher Nolan as they were meant to be seen – on the big screen at the cinema. As excitement for both films continues into this week, I want to thank all of our Odeon colleagues for their hard work in delivering the very best big screen experience for all our guests, with over 70% of our cinemas marking their busiest week in five years last week.”
Over the weekend, “Barbie” collected $122.2 million internationally and $93 million domestically for a total of $774.5 million, while “Oppenheimer” earned $72.418 million internationally and $46.2 million domestically for a $400.3 million total, per numbers from Comscore.
Vue International, which is the largest privately owned cinema operator in Europe, operates 1,990 screens across 227 sites in nine countries.
