The ‘Barbenheimer’phenomenon has taken over the domestic box office this weekend as Hollywood movies Oppenheimer and Barbie set the cash registers ringing. As per early estimates, the two movies raked in about ₹18-20 crore in net collections at the Indian box office on Friday.
Analysts said that this was a very good opening-day collection for Hollywood flicks in the country. Oppenheimer has also become this year’s highest grossing Hollywood movie in terms of opening-day collections in India.
Christospher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is estimated to have garnered ₹13.5-14.5 crore on Friday as per trade analysts, crossing the first-day collection of other major Hollywood flicks Fast X and Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning.
Unlike the US, Oppenheimer is much ahead of Barbie in box office collections in India.
Barbie is estimated to have earned between ₹4.5-6 crore on the opening day. Oppenheimer has trumped Barbie owing to the fact that Nolan’s blockbuster film has had a wider release in India, compared to the Margot Robbie-starrer. According to Box Office India, Oppenheimer has been released on about 1,900 screens while Barbie has been released on over 850 screens in India.
Trade Analyst Ramesh Bala tweeted that the Day 1 collections for Oppenheimer are estimated at ₹14.50 crore, while Barbie drew ₹6 crore net.
Producer and film business expert Girish Johar said that Oppenheimer garnered about ₹13.75 crore on Friday, which is more than Fast X, while Barbie has got a “very impressive” collection of about ₹4.5 crore.
In an earlier interaction, PVR Inox Co-CEO Gautam Dutta had told businessline thatshows for Oppenheimer on formats such as IMAX and 4DX were sold out.
As per estimates by Ormax Media, Hollywood movies’ contribution to Indian box office collections was estimated at about ₹585 crore in January-June period. This is estimated to be about a 12 per cent contribution to cumulative gross box office collections of ₹4,868 crore in the first six months of the year. Fast X with gross collections of ₹135 crore was the only Hollywood film to feature in the top ten movies in the first half of the year, it added.
Interestingly, the two films had contrasting opening day figures in the US. While Barbie collected $22.3 million in ticket sales on day one, Oppenheimer managed only $10.5 million.