Greta Gerwig's Barbie, starring Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie, has soared above Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer on the third day of its global box office collection.
Both films hit the big screens on 21 July and opened to exceptionally good reviews. Barbie grossed a whopping Rs 21 crore across 868 screens in its opening weekend, which is the widest release for an English-only film in India.
Oppenheimer also saw a record-breaking opening weekend with a box office collection of Rs 60 crore across 1,923 screens (including all IMAX screens) in India.
According to reports, Barbie claimed the top spot with $155 million from 4,243 theatres across North America, surpassing every Marvel movie this year. Oppenheimer, on the other hand, made $80.5 million from 3,610 theatres in the United States and Canada.
Speaking about the two films, Denzil Dias, Vice President and Managing Director, India Theatrical, Warner Bros Discovery shared in a press statement, "We are beyond thrilled with the box office numbers of both Oppenheimer and Barbie at the India Box office and are delighted to see the Indian audiences throng the cinemas to watch these films of completely different genres. While we knew that Christopher Nolan has a huge fanbase in India, Oppenheimer has outperformed by becoming the biggest opening for a Nolan film ever!
"In a market dominated typically by Action-event films or Superhero films, Barbie has defied odds with its Box office collections to become the 2nd biggest Opening ever for a Hollywood female-oriented film.
"The success of both films on the same weekend is a very encouraging sign for the Cinema business in India, which clearly shows that the audiences will come in droves for quality content," he added.
Similarly, Sanjeev Kumar Bijli, Executive Director, PVR INOX Limited, said, "There was already a huge amount of anticipation for both these iconic movies, which is visible from the exceptional turnout of fans that we have witnessed in cinemas across India. We are proud to have sold more than 1.5 million tickets so far, depicting a hysteria that is running across the country, metros and non-metros alike, for Barbie and Oppenheimer.
"Even our cinema in Srinagar is witnessing houseful shows, which speaks volume about the excitement around the two movies. Not just IMAX, but even our Premium Large-screen Formats, P(XL) and BigPix, and experiential formats like ICE too are witnessing sold-out scenarios," he added to his statement.
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