Oppenheimer crosses 900 million worldwide, but the drought is coming.
Oppenheimer has now become the highest-grossing biopic film, passing Bohemian Rhapsody. It’s a feat that will not be beaten for a long time, I’d imagine. Most biopics aren’t summer blockbusters or massive action movies. Usually, they are longer drama films or, more recently, made to win awards due to the massive work an actor will do to become the person on film.
Oppenheimer had a lot of help from Barbie, who became Warner Bros.’s highest-grossing movie ever with over a billion dollars. Barbie and Oppenheimer had the double feature working for them. They created a unique scenario—one we haven’t seen, maybe ever. Two polar opposite films to watch back to back for a unique experience. Both films benefited massively. The opening weekend for both was a smash hit, and it didn’t slow down for a long time.
This was a big help to theaters, as post-COVID, we saw many struggles. This year, we had one of the best summer blockbusters in years, with multiple massive smash hits. But now we face another problem on the horizon for theaters.
The SAG strikes are still going, and that means there are only a handful of movies being worked on currently. So, here soon, we will see fewer big movies in theaters that would usually draw large crowds. We already saw a couple of films get delayed, such as Dune 2, which was supposed to come out this year but got pushed to March 2024, a date that might move even farther out as the strikes continue.
Unfortunately, a drought is coming. However, we can hope that people are getting into the routine of seeing movies in theaters again due to the success of films like Oppenheimer.
