'Barbie,' 'Oppenheimer' continue movie rule with strong second weekends
Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images Entertainment
The movies about the bombshell and the bomb continued cruising at a record pace over their second weekend in theaters.
Barbie (NASDAQ:WBD) and Oppenheimer (NASDAQ:CMCSA) stayed on top of the domestic box office lists, grossing $93M and $46.2M respectively, according to Comscore (a second-weekend dropoff of 43% and 44% respectively).
Barbie's (WBD) second weekend was the seventh-best sophomore weekend domestically of all time. It brings the candy-colored movie based on the Mattel (MAT) doll to a cumulative total of $351.4M at home; overseas, it added another $122.M to the pile to reach an international total of $423.1M. Worldwide, that's a stellar $774.5M in just two weekends, with an entry to the billion-dollar club days away.
It's the top film in 57 worldwide markets, and it's even the uncommon U.S. film to actually be gaining steam in China, where it's built off a light opening to accelerate to higher grosses.
As for Oppenheimer (CMCSA), while it's not the draw that Barbie is, it held its own for another interval in 3,647 locations and has piled up a cumulative total of $174.1M domestically. That film too is strong overseas, Comscore noted, with the weekend bringing $72.4M more, taking its worldwide total so far to $400.4M.
The weekend's best debut went to theme-park ride-based Haunted Mansion (NYSE:DIS), which pulled $24.2M across 3,740 locations to end up in third place. Against "Barbenheimer," the relatively expensive film has a bit of a hill to climb to reach profitability for Disney.
In the No. 4 and No. 5 spots were another solid weekend for Sound of Freedom (Angel Studios), with $12.4M bringing its domestic total to $149M; and Mission: Impossible -- Dead Reckoning Part One (PARA) (PARAA), with $10.7M to reach a domestic total of $139.2M.
Cinema tickers: AMC Entertainment (NYSE:AMC); Cineworld (OTCPK:CNNWQ); Cinemark (CNK); (IMAX); Marcus (MCS); Reading International (RDI); Cineplex (CGX:CA); National CineMedia (NCMI).
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