The cinemas of Calcutta witnessed something over the weekend that they had not seen in many years.
Two English films that released on Friday fuelled a blockbuster opening, the kind usually reserved for Bollywood potboilers.
Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, which brings to life Mattel’s iconic and ageless fashion doll, and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, a historical drama aboutphysicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and the making of the atomic bomb, have together created a frenzy that is unparalleled, exhibitors across formats said.
“Both films did very very good numbers. The demand is likely to sustain, goingby the advance bookings,” said Amitava Guha Thakurta, regional director, INOX.
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, which sees superstar Tom Cruise return as Ethan Hunt, released on July 12 and also registered a healthy collection, he said.
Together, the three films have 236 shows across INOX screens, which roughly make up 80 per cent of the plex chain’s bouquet in Calcutta. Out of 236 shows, Oppenheimer and Barbie have 184.
Devasis Gupta, a 74-year-old management consultant, and his wife Paramita, a retired educator, watched Oppenheimer at a plex in Forum Mall on Monday.
“Nolan is my favourite director. I went in with a lot of expectations. All of them were met. To me, this is Nolan’s best, and most cerebral film till date,” said Devasis.
Growing up, Pooja Gandhi, a costume designer, would get a Barbie doll from her mother on each birthday.
On Monday, she came to watch Barbie with her mother, Preeti.
“It had to be her. Barbie has been an integral part of our bonding,” said Pooja.
Both of them were dressed in pink like hundreds of thousands of people headed for a Barbie show across the globe.
Pink outfits, focused on the doll’s signature colour, are dominating the global fashion scene, helped by Mattel’s all-out marketing blitz to build buzz for the movie.
From sneakers to backpacks, everything seems to have a dash of pink. From Gigi Hadid and Anne Hathaway to the Princess of Wales, everyone seems smitten by the craze.
With Barbie and Oppenheimer, Hollywood has gripped popular culture in a way that it had not for a long time in Calcutta.
Sandipan Mitra, who lives in a housing complex off EM Bypass in Panchasayar, had booked two tickets for a Sunday matinee show of Oppenheimer. But Mitra wasn’t sure if he and his wife could make it to the movie.
Their 17-year-old daughter was desperate to watch Barbie with a group of six friends on Sunday. “Unless all of them found tickets, we were threatened not to step out of home. Thank heavens, they finally got the tickets,” said Mitra, a businessman.
For a pure, non-dubbed English version, Barbie is generating a tremendous buzz, according to exhibitors.
Oppenheimer has a Hindi version but the original English film is doing better, even in places where Hindi versions would generally do better than the original English, they said.
Technically, two big films released together should be competitors. But Barbie and Oppenheimer are largely going after different audiences and both seem to have benefitted from the hype.
“I think Barbie and Oppenheimer complement each other very well. Oppenheimer is a little more refined and intense. Barbie, on the other hand, is very colourful and lively. They are like night and day, light and darkness. They are both great movies but at two different ends of the spectrum,” said Kushagra Jalan, who is distributing both films in Bengal on behalf of Warner Bros.
The massive marketing splurge and, consequently, the outpour of internet memes helped in building curiosity in the run-up to the release of the films. “Both films have got a very good opening. I see this sustaining for the next few days. Both are good. Both have tremendous public interest. That is the most important thing. However good or bad a film is, at the end of the day, the curiosity of the audience is a very important factor. That has been created by the makers of both these films. That is a very good thing,” said Arijit Dutta, owner ofPriya, which is showing Oppenheimer.
Barbie, which stars Margot Robbie in the titular role alongside Ryan Gosling, has a run time of just under two hours. Oppenheimer, which boasts a stellar cast led by Cillian Murphy, stretches three.
While extremely rare, such Hollywood box-office matchups are not without precedent. Nolan was part of a precedent, exhibitors pointed out.
In July 2008, Nolan’s Batman movie The Dark Knight, which also featured Murphy, arrived with the rom-com, Meryl Streep-starrer Mamma Mia!.
While The Dark Knight went on to become a smash hit, Mamma Mia! did brisk business, too.
