Oppenheimer and Barbie came out on the same day in July. Both of the movies turn out to be biggest blockbusters of the previous year.
Oppenheimer and Barbie would had been available on the streaming service, then their respective success stories would have been the same. Ted Sarandos, CEO of Netflix, stated that both films “would have enjoyed just as big an audience on Netflix,” according to a Variety article. On July 21, 2023, Christopher Nolan‘s Oppenheimer and Greta Gerwig‘s Barbie were released simultaneously.
Ted reportedly stated, “I don’t think there’s a clear-cut solution because the best version of something might work really well for Netflix but hasn’t worked to date. Some are apparent, like the fact that we don’t cover breaking news or anything like because, in my opinion, there are enough of other venues for that type of content. That’s not what people are looking to us for.”
Speaking to a question concerning Barbie and Oppenheimer‘s extraordinary popularity, he said, “Netflix should definitely consider streaming both of those films. They undoubtedly would have benefited from a similar level of viewership on Netflix. Therefore, I don’t think there’s any evidence to support the idea that some films are better than others. There’s no evidence to suggest that the film itself looks better on any size screen for everyone. My son works as an editor. He saw Lawrence of Arabia on his phone and is 28 years old.”
Despite the fact that Barbie and Oppenheimer come from quite different genres, their box office rivalry gave rise to the Barbenheimer meme since viewers couldn’t decide which movie to start with.
Greta Gerwig‘s parody, which starred Ryan Gosling as Ken and Margot Robbie as Barbie, went on to earn over $1 billion at the film office worldwide. With Cillian Murphy playing the title character, Christopher Nolan‘s biography of J Robert Oppenheimer came pretty close to hitting that mark.
