'Oppenheimer' and 'Barbie' Advance Booking Status and Opening Day Box Office Expectations

Mumbai, July 19 - Hollywood films have done well at the Indian box office this year and the momentum continued with Tom Cruise's Mission Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One. It was released on July 12 and is doing very good business, grossing over 85 crores so far.

The month of July is particularly going to be a major period for Hollywood titles as next in the month are Christopher Nolan's atom bomb movie Oppenheimer and Greta Gerwig's fantasy comedy film Barbie. Scheduled to release on July 21, both Oppenheimer and Barbie are set to spring a big surprise at the Indian box office.



Oppenheimer is particularly having an excellent response in the advanced sales in India as far as the national multiplex chains are concerned. It has sold approx. 200K tickets in three national chains (PVR, INOX, and Cinepolis) for the opening day which is among the top advances post the covid-19 pandemic.

The IMAX format of the movie is almost witnessing a near-sold-out opening day while the English 2D format is also having a very good response. With these sorts of pre-sales, the opening of 20 crores would have been a sure shot given but the movie is expected to have low spot booking. However, it will still be eyeing a 15-17 crores start which will be termed very good.

Meanwhile, Warner Bros. Pictures' Barbie starring Margot Robbie in the title role and Ryan Gosling as Ken, also has good pre-booking despite the competition as it has sold approx. 80K tickets for the opening day in three national chains. The advance sales of the film got momentum over the last 48 hours.



Barbie is expected to score around 6-7 crores which will be a good opening. Had it been a solo Hollywood release, an opening of 10+ crores net was given with these sorts of advances, but due to the competition, the Hollywood audiences will be divided with most of them likely to prefer Oppenheimer. Also, there will be Mission Impossible 7 which is also likely to retain a decent amount of screens.

The combined opening of both films should be around 20-23 crores net in India and if they receive positive talks, the opening weekend could well be around 75-90 crores net. Meanwhile, in the domestic (North America), Barbenheimer is projected to score $150+ million opening weekend ($110+ M for Barbie, and $50 M for Oppenheimer).

Stay tuned...