‘Barbie’ Skeptic Turns Believer Ahead of Highly Anticipated Summer Film
Let's go, Barbies. It's finally here.
Barbie premieres nationwide on Friday, July 21, and the Warner Brothers comedy starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling is expected to be a big hit.
I logged on to the AMC Dartmouth Mall website this morning to find many of the shows for the first day already sold out so plan ahead if you are heading out this weekend to see the Greta Gerwig-directed movie.
Like many people, I was a bit skeptical at first of the movie about the famous doll, but as we started to see pictures of the cast and the sets, I really started to get excited. So many of the costumes and furniture I remember as a kid coming to real life on the screen look better than I expected. As trailers for the movie premiered, I realized that this movie had the potential to be a real hit and I have been waiting for opening day ever since.
Early screening reviews are starting to pour in and there's actual talk about an Oscar-worthy performance from Gosling, who apparently has a knack for comedic timing. Robbie seems to be the perfect casting pick, a real-life Barbie who even wore many classic Barbie dresses as she hit the red carpets on the press tour.
Last summer, moviegoers showed studios what they really wanted to see in theaters when Top Gun: Maverick premiered. The long-awaited sequel to the '80s hit brought people out to the movies in a way we haven't seen in years. It was nostalgic and brought us back to the basics of simple fun movies with high energy, great music and good-looking leading actors. To date, Top Gun: Maverick has brought in over $1.4 billion in box office revenue and Barbie is projected to have a similar weekend start, potentially a $100 million opening weekend.
The much-anticipated and rather opposite film "Oppenheimer," a story about the scientist behind the atomic bomb, is also debuting this Thursday. The two very different flicks together have a great "date night" appeal and started an online trend of moviegoers' plans to watch the movies back to back, in what many have dubbed "Barbenheimer."
If you see one or both, it will be a great opening weekend for the box office and movie fans.
Fun Fact: Barbie's official birthday is March 9, 1959, the day she was unveiled to the toy industry during the New York Toy Fair. The first Barbie sold for just $3.