The Latest 'Barbie' Trailer Only Reinforces How Epic Its Box Office Showdown With 'Oppenheimer' Is About To Be
On this latest Barbie trailer write-up, I'm a day late...
A buck short I'm writing the report on losing and failing when I move I'm flailing now
OK but I've been all-in on this Barbie movie from the jump. The initial teaser trailer was so unbelievably good. When you're coming out of the gates recreating/parodying the Dawn of Man sequence from 2001: A Space Odyssey, you have me at "HELLO."
Since then we've had another teaser, and now we have the "MAIN" trailer. There are some really funny bits in here once again. However, the main takeaway? We actually have some idea where the plot is going. Barbie (and Ken, who tags along) leaves Barbie Land and ventures out into the real world. Maybe this was already revealed in some promotional material/synopsis that I didn't see. First I've heard or seen of it.
My initial reaction, to be honest?
BUT THEN I realized that was the best possible reaction to have. Allow me to explain.
This whole Barbie thing seems like such a terrible idea for a movie. Greta Gerwig is directing and co-wrote the script with partner Noah Baumbach. Not that I doubt their talents. It's just that they haven't really had a crack at some high-concept, nine-figure budget hopeful franchise launcher before. I'm surprised that Baumbach in particular took this on. He usually makes all these esoteric, high-brow intellectual indie flicks that are good, yes, but crowd-pleasing mega-hit blockbusters they are not.
…Barbie really feels like a Lord and Miller special. Take a horrendous concept for the silver screen, somehow blow expectations out of the water and surprise everyone with a phenomenal film. I'm pretty convinced that's what's going to happen with Barbie.
The way Ryan Gosling and Simu Liu in particular have gushed over the script, it's hard not to get hyped as hell.
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How else do you get this loaded of a cast together, the caliber of filmmakers of Gerwig and Baumbach to take such big swings on the screenplay, and build this type of buzz before release? Not to mention the audacity to release it on the exact same date as Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer!
I know Matt Damon came out recently and downplayed the whole Barbie vs. Oppenheimer box office face-off. Like yeah, you're allowed to see more than one movie on the weekend. I think both will be huge successes and rake in tons of money. But after this latest Barbie trailer, I can't help but be even more confident that Oppenheimer might be beat out.
I don't think there's an official runtime for Barbie yet. Oppenheimer clocks in at around three hours. Google tells me Barbie is an hour and 40 minutes but I can't find the source to confirm anywhere. Even if it's a little over the two-hour mark, that leaves substantially more room for Barbie to have more screenings. Nolan's latest is going to be some heavy-ass material. Barbie looks like a visual feast in a totally different way with plenty of humor, pointed commentary and, yes, plenty of star power just like Oppenheimer's stacked ensemble of actors.
Whether or not they do as KenJac suggested a while back and put together a double-feature type special with these two movies on that July 21 release date, I will do everything in my power to see both of 'em back to back. Might mean deliberately dehydrating myself for a while just so I can power through. It's been a minute since there have been a ton of great movies in theaters at once. awards season-ish from like October to December 2019 is the last time I recall. Pretty sure we're about to get two masterworks on the same day in fewer than two months.
CUE THAT FIRST TEASER ONE MORE TIME.
Twitter @MattFitz_gerald/TikTok