"Barbie" and "Oppenheimer" Debuts Lift Weekend Box Office to Four-Year High
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Cinemas finally have something to celebrate.
Barbie, a comedy about the famous fashion doll, and Oppenheimer, a biography of the inventor of the atomic bomb, brought out movie fans in droves, helping box office revenue this weekend more than double from a year earlier to about $302 million.
Warner Bros.' Barbie was the top picture in US and Canadian cinemas, taking in $155 million in ticket sales, researcher Comscore said Sunday. That also gave it the highest-grossing debut of the year, edging past the $146.4 million haul from April's The Super Mario Bros. Movie. The film made its debut the same weekend as director Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer, which brought in $80.5 million.
The simultaneous releases energized theatergoers, helping cinemas turn in the best weekend since Avengers: Endgame made its debut in April 2019.
Vocabulary:
Theatregoers - people who go to the theatre
in droves - many people moving
highest grossing - most amount of money earned before tax
haul - a large amount
brought out - made people come out to do or see something
edging - slowly moving
