Pop Culture
What does ‘Barbenheimer’ really mean for Hollywood?
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In that light, the Barbenheimer chatter starts to sound slightly desperate – like an invitation to one last party before fasting begins. It certainly seemed like that when the London premiere of Oppenheimer was brought forward by an hour so that the actors could pose on the red carpet in the final minutes before the SAG-AFRA strike came into effect. Buffeted by the Covid-19 pandemic and by the current writers’ and actors’ strikes, the film industry is in a shaky state. Barbenheimer feels more like a celebration of the past than the dawn of a bright new future.
Nolan, after all, is known for championing analogue film and resisting the advance of digital technology, while Barbie relies on the nostalgic appeal of a doll that has been around for decades. The toy company behind the doll, Mattel, is trumpeting a raft of films based on its products, but just this week it was revealed that an eye-watering $30m had been spent on developing Mattel’s Masters of The Universe, only for Netflix to drop the project.
As for the Barbenheimer phenomenon, all the talk of dressing up and buying cocktails suggests that going to the cinema with friends has become a rare special occasion rather than a regular activity – something you put in the diary and plan ahead for, rather than something you just do. Maybe such gloomy thoughts are prompted because both Barbie and Oppenheimer ponder life and death, but you have to ask: what does it say about the movie business if it takes a meme as unique and absurd as Barbenheimer to get customers into their local multiplex?
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