‘Barbenheimer’ electrifies UK-Ireland box office as ‘Barbie’ debuts with £18.5m, ‘Oppenheimer’ hits £10.9m

Rank	Film (distributor)	Three-day gross (July 21-23)	Total gross to date	Week
1.	Barbie  (Warner Bros)	£18.5m	£18.5m	1
2.	Oppenheimer  (Universal)	£10.9m	£10.9m	1
3.	Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One  (Paramount)	£2.9m	£16.4m	2
4.	Elemental  (Disney)	£1.4m	£9m	3
5.	Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny  (Disney)	£677,203	£18m	4

GBP to USD conversion rate: 1.28

A stunning £18.5m opening from Barbie and a huge £10.9m from Oppenheimer propelled the UK-Ireland box office to its biggest weekend in over four years.

The first time ever that two films have opened to over £10m each in the same session, the weekend saw sold-out screenings of both films in cinemas across the territory, in a range of projection formats.

With £18.5m, Warner Bros’ Barbie recorded the third-highest three-day opening since 2019, behind only James Bond title No Time To Die  (£21m) and Spider-Man: No Way Home  (£19.5m) from 2021. Playing in 727 sites, its location average was £25,456 - the highest in over 10 years for a Warner Bros film.

Greta Gerwig’s film has smashed the record for biggest opening for a film solo-directed by a woman, previously held by Sam Taylor-Johnson’s Fifty Shades Of Grey with £13.6m from 2015.

It is the biggest opening weekend of the year for any film; and biggest opening weekend in the careers of actor-producer Margot Robbie, actor Ryan Gosling and writer-director Gerwig.

From 662 locations, Oppenheimer took £10.9m for Universal, at a £16,311 average. It has secured the second-biggest opening weekend ever for a Christopher Nolan film, ahead of Dunkirk  (£10.1m), Inception (£5.9m) and Interstellar  (£5.4m) and behind only The Dark Knight Rises  (£14.3m).

The film topped £4m on Saturday alone, with £3.3m on Friday and £3.6m on Sunday making up its great start. Its £10.9m total included just shy of £2m from Imax screenings alone, with those 52 venues accounting for 18% of the film’s total opening.

Vue Cinemas, the third-biggest exhibitor in the UK and Ireland with 91 venues, reported its highest weekend of admissions since the release of Avengers: Endgame in May 2019, with over 2,000 sold-out sessions.

Vue International co-founder and CEO Tim Richards said Barbie is tracking to be the biggest film of 2023, with “a good chance” of entering the top 10 highest-grossing films of all time in the territory (Star Wars: The Last Jedi is currently 10^th with £82.7m).

Best of the rest

Barbenheimer put a squeeze on the rest of the box office, taking the vast majority of screens at many cinemas; but there were still notable performances elsewhere in the chart.

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One added £2.9m on its second weekend for Paramount. This represented a 54.4% drop on its opening session – a decent performance, especially in the context of losing its Imax screens to Oppenheimer.

The film is now up to £16.4m, passing the £15.5m of 2006’s Mission: Impossible 3 and with the £17.3m of 2000’s Mission: Impossible 2 next up from the franchise.

Disney’s Elemental added £1.4m, a 42% drop which is a reasonable hold in the context of the weekend. The film now has just shy of £9m from three weekends, already ahead of Disney-Pixar title Onward (£7.7m) from 2020.

Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny added £677,203 for Disney, dropping 62% on its previous session; and is up to £18m from four weekends.

Top five takings rose for a fourth successive weekend, this time by a colossal 168.6% to £34.4m. The total box office takings were £35.7m – the second-highest ever, behind the last weekend of April 2019 when Endgame came out.

Sony’s Insidious: The Red Door added £535,000 – a 64.6% drop – on its third weekend, and is up to £6.5m, still with a chance of catching Insidious 2’s £7.2m to become the highest-grossing title of the horror franchise.

Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse is up to a £29.5m total from eight weekends, passing the £29m total of 2002’s live-action Spider-Man and with 2017’s Homecoming in its sights. It added £266,000 this session, a 61.8% drop.

Disney’s The Little Mermaid put on a further £112,920 on its ninth weekend in cinemas, dropping 69% on its previous session to reach a £26.8m total.

Universal animation Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken saw a 64% drop on its fourth weekend in cinemas, adding £85,561 to reach £2.1m.

Former number one The Super Mario Bros. Movie benefitted immensely from the Barbenheimer boost, increasing its takings by 96% on last weekend with £75,935 on its 16^th weekend in cinemas.

The Universal animated title has now topped the £54m mark, and has entered the top 40 highest-grossing films of all time in the UK and Ireland.

Asteroid City fell back 82% for Universal, adding £58,756 on its fifth weekend in cinemas to reach a £4.7m cume. It will likely finish as the third-highest-grossing of Wes Anderson’s films, behind 2014’s The Grand Budapest Hotel (£11.5m) and 2018’s Isle Of Dogs (£6m).

Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts added £45,000 for Paramount, and has crossed the £8m mark, reaching almost £8.1m from seven weekends.

Sony comedy No Hard Feelings added a further £39,000 – an 84.7% drop - and is up to £3.9m from five sessions.

Young children-focused animation anthology CoComelon: Best Of Episodes opened to £16,274 from 70 locations.

Signature Entertainment’s The Secret Kingdom started with £9,130 from 57 sites at a £160 average. The film is one of several looking to benefit from the Barbenheimer boost in the coming weeks, as it expands its site coverage with the summer holidays.

Warner Bros The Flash dropped 90.8% on its sixth weekend in cinemas, with £7,879 taking it to £8.8m.

As the only independent adult-facing new film this weekend, Mark Cousins’ My Name Is Alfred Hitchcock started with £7,115 from 11 screens at a healthy £647 average; and has £10,581 including previews.

Chinese title Lost In The Stars added a further £5,381 for Trinity/CineAsia – a 90% drop on its opening – and has £113,762 to date.

Anime Ltd’s Japanese animation Tunnel To Summer, The Exit Of Goodbyes put on a further £878 this weekend to bring its two-weekend total to £44,747.

• How ‘Barbenheimer’ effect is selling out UK cinemas ahead of bumper opening weekend