Holdover Barbie and newcomer Gran Turismo are in a race for the pole position at the weekend box office, while last weekend’s champ Blue Beetle suffers from the DCEU curse and will probably fall to third place unless it can build enough momentum into the weekend to squeeze an extra million or two from audiences.
Margot Robbie stars in “Barbie”
Barbie tops $1.3 billion in worldwide receipts as it heads into the weekend, with estimates of $10-12 million domestic and around the same internationally, but I expect Barbie to overperform slightly stateside at closer to $14-15 million range. That would lift the total global sales to about $28 million.
Gran Turismo is eyeing $12-15 million stateside, and most pundits think it will top the weekend charts, despite evidence it lacks buzz or audience awareness. Likewise, Blue Beetle is slotted at second place in most of those estimates, which presume a generously average weekly decline and leaves Barbie in third place.
But with a mere $1-2 million separating each film, I’m inclined to feel there’s no reason to expect Barbie to stop overperforming, and even less reason to expect Blue Beetle to have a stronger hold than any other DCEU releases this year. And I’ve simply not seen enough reason to give Gran Turismo more benefit of the box office doubt, either.
So when the checkered flag is waved, I’m going to guess Barbie scores a last-minute victory and bests Gran Turismo by roughly million dollars. Blue Beetle, sadly, should expect closer to the $10 million range. I don’t feel super-strong about it, though, and with such a fine line between these three contenders, I won’t be surprised if Gran Turismo manages a win and Blue Beetle pleasantly surprises with a small boost.
With $4 ticket sales on Sunday in celebration of National Cinema Day, I believe the key factor will be which of these three films generates the most repeat business at those cheap seat prices. And in that race, I think Barbie will be the biggest beneficiary.
By close of business Sunday, Barbie should sit atop somewhere around $1.33 billion. Before the end of its theatrical run, Barbie will add another $50-60 million, conservatively speaking, and should easily pass $1.39 billion at this point. Whether it has enough oomph to clear $1.4 billion remains to be seen.
But if it falls shy of that figure, don’t worry — with an IMAX re-release featuring new footage, Barbie is bound to fly past $1.4 billion. That one-week of special premiere screenings in September could propel the film north of $1.45 billion, and might even get it in shooting distance of $1.5 billion.
Even without additional screenings, however, Barbie will become the highest grossing movie worldwide of 2023 and pass The Super Mario Bros. Movie on the first weekend of September.
Going forward, it appears several expected major releases will wind up abandoning their release dates later this year, and several already have. The exodus is expected to increase, and it means there will be even less competition in the marketplace for Barbie as it makes its way toward what the studio hopes will be a magnificent $1.5 billion finish.
Warner Bros. Discovery could definitely use the Barbie-Oppenheimer financial lift, in the face of a DCEU slate that has completely collapsed at the box office. The combined box office of their first three superhero releases so far in 2023 — Shazam! Fury of the Gods, The Flash, and Blue Beetle — will wind up with a combined worldwide box office total of about $520 million. Ouch.
Not that WBD are the only studio feeling the pain this year. Disney has suffered a brutal beating as well, as Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 was their only blockbuster success so far out of a slate of six big releases so far. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, The Little Mermaid, and Elemental all underperformed against expectations, while Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and Haunted Mansion were even big disappointments — the latter flopping at just $86 million worldwide.
Despite so much theater industry and entertainment media spin you might get dizzy hearing it, the truth is 2023 has only managed to avoid disaster because of a small handful of huge performers in a sea of failures and underperformers.
Barbie, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Oppenheimer, and Spider-Man: Across the SpiderVerse all played at or above expectations and were big hits.
But otherwise, even several films including The Little Mermaid and Ant-Man and the Wasp that managed to grossing in the $450-550 million range were still expected to perform much higher, and had expensive production costs and huge marketing pushes that mean their box office failed to cover budgets or resulted in minimal profits from what should have been blockbuster tentpoles.
There are a few films — such as Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning and Elemental — sitting in a sort of limbo area where their box office managed to leg out enough to probably cover costs and make them technically box office successes, but which were also expected to generate several hundred million more dollars.
And of course, a few low-budget entries have enjoyed relatively strong performances and good profits, while not necessarily contributing to what we’d call the bigger picture of box office dollars and cents. Not at the level we’re talking about, anyway.
It’s worth noting how much Avatar: The Way of Water helped out the 2023 box office by contributing about $1 billion, including $283 million in domestic coffers. Barbie’s, Oppenheimer’s, and Avatar 2’s combined 2023 global receipts sales total more than $3 billion. The entire worldwide box office sits at $6.4 billion after nearly eight months. It’s true that Christmas releases usually leg out into the New Year and contribute toward the next year’s box office, but in this case the added revenue from Avatar 2 was especially needed and influential.
If you doubted a Barbie sequel would happen, now is a good time to revise those doubts and wave your “Barbie For President” flags. With Barbie now having a realistic chance at reaching $1.5 billion, and with mind-blowing merchandising and other revenue stream results, there is zero chance Mattel and WBD will decide to forego the enormous franchise potential of this year’s biggest hit.