A poster of 'Oppenheimer" movie.
Hollywood releases Barbie and Oppenheimer have been raking in huge profits for their producers over the past one week. In India, the doll-themed film has already grossed $5.1 million while the Christopher Nolan film has crossed $13 million at the box office in the ten days since their release. While Barbie has grossed $700 million globally, Oppenheimer has made $400 million since its release.
Directed by Greta Gerwig, Barbie made an opening collection of $600,000 on July 21 in India while Nolan’s biopic movie made $1.8 million in the country on day one of the release. The two films have been topping box office reports worldwide ever since. Globally, Barbie has scored much better than Oppenheimer, but in India it is the opposite. Interestingly, that happened despite a few controversies surrounding Oppenheimer.
Gerwig imagines a scenario in which the famous dolls Barbie and Ken step out of the Barbie world and go wandering around the real world to fix a few issues that she faces. The new film aims at subverting patriarchy and attacks the unrealistic standards of the ideal female body. Margot Robbie plays the ‘stereotypical Barbie’ in the movie while Ryan Gosling steps in for the role of her boyfriend, Ken. The film also stars America Ferrera, and Rhea Perlman. Helen Mirren is the narrator of the movie.
Barbie collected roughly $3 million in India over the first weekend and the collections remained steady over the week. The week one earnings for the movie in India stood at $3.4 million. Even after the Hindi film Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani released in India on July 28, the Hollywood film managed a $900,000 collection over its second weekend alone.
Nolan's biopic on nuclear physicist J Robert Oppenheimer, who is also known as the father of atomic bomb, showcases his struggles with his own conscience after the bomb was used in the second world war. The film has been adapted for cinemas from Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin’s book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer. The film is not just nuclear physics - the politics and emotions layered through the narrative make it even more compelling for audiences from all walks of life.
A Forbes’ piece on the film read: “It’s a tour de force about the titular scientist and his work in charge of the Los Alamos laboratory that were part of the Manhattan Project that developed the first atomic weapons. But it’s also a movie about conscience. You will not walk away from that film thinking that Mr. Oppenheimer was a particularly good human being, but he was someone who, like many of the scientists who worked on the project, had to do a great moral reckoning with themselves and were vocal about the need to limit the destructive potential of the science they’d uncovered.”
Oppenheimer faced some trouble in India over a scene that showed the protagonist and his lover quoting a couplet from the Hindu scripture - Shrimad Bhagvad Gita - moments after they had sex. The use of the same couplet, about Hindu God Vishnu assuming the form of death - appears completely apt when used at a different moment. The film features Cillian Murphy as the physicist while Florence Pugh essays the role of his lover Jean Tatlock. Emily Blunt plays his wife Kitty in the film that also stars Robert Downey Jr, and Matt Damon, among others, in important roles.
The film made an opening collection of $1.8 million in India and went on to score $3.8 million in the first weekend. Over the week, the film crossed $11.3 million and has now made a total of $13 million in India over ten days since the first release on July 21.
