‘Barbie’ Fashions $41M+ Two-Day Overseas Start, ‘Oppenheimer’ Energetic With $16M; Both Set Records – International Box Office

Christopher Nolan’s highly-anticipated and highly-reviewed Oppenheimer has begun overseas rollout with strong results versus some of the director’s previous titles. On Wednesday, the Universal film opened in 10 offshore markets, grossing $2.4M and led by France and Indonesia. These are early days as the critically-lauded Cillian Murphy-led biographical drama/political thriller will be playing a total 78 markets through Friday, across over 9,600 locations, 13,000 screens, and more than 320 IMAX screens.

While we wait for the full onslaught of the much-anticipated “Barbenheimer” double-bill this weekend, and will have a fuller picture including Warner Bros’ Barbie tomorrow, we already have initial international box office numbers for Oppenheimer, the story of the building of the atomic bomb, and the resultant aftermath. 

In France, Oppenheimer debuted to $1.4M o Wednesday from 725 screens including 18 IMAX and two 70mm screens, as well as 11 Dolby Vision and six ultra-laser Kinepolis screens. The launch day is the biggest opening Wednesday for a Nolan film since The Dark Knight Rises. Excluding previews, the Wednesday admissions are above MI:7 (+23%), Dunkirk (+14%), Tenet (+28%) and Interstellar (+76%). Audience reactions are highly positive with mainstream audiences rating it 4.4/5 and cinephile audiences rating it 7.3/10, one of the top ratings for the market.

Indonesia bowed Wednesday with an estimated $451K to mark the biggest opening day ever for a Nolan film (38% ahead of The Dark Knight Rises). IMAX delivered the biggest opening day ever in the format and the biggest single day gross in IMAX, beating Avatar 2 (+11%). Oppenheimer is playing across 10 IMAX screens and a total of 495 screens in the market. Wednesday was a public holiday in Indonesia for Islamic New Year.

Belgium opened with $251K on Wednesday, the biggest start ever for a Nolan film in the market, beating The Dark Knight Rises (+13%), Inception (+23%) and The Dark Knight (+31%) as well as all other key comps.

Philippines launched with $125K on Wednesday, the top opening day ever for a non-superhero Nolan film. Oppenheimer played across nine IMAX screens and in a total of 198 screens.

Egypt had a terrific start at $74K on Wednesday with Oppenheimer delivering the 2^nd biggest opening day for any studio movie since the pandemic hit, only behind Spider-Man: No Way Home. It also easily achieved the biggest Hollywood opening day of the year, more than double Fast X and the 7^th biggest MPA opening day of all time in admissions, +18% above Avengers: Infinity War.

Switzerland (French-speaking) grossed $70K on opening Wednesday, more than double the launch days of Tenet and Batman Begins, above Dunkirk (+29%), Interstellar (+46%) and recent opener MI:7 (+8%).

The film also had a strong start in Iceland ($31K) for the top Nolan start outside the Batman series.

Among majors, today the film opens in Australia, Germany, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and Brazil with the UK, Spain and India following on Friday.

In terms of presales, UK/Ireland is seeing strong uptake with PLFs repping a significant portion and sell-out shows across opening weekend; Germany’s IMAX presales are above Universal’s own Fast X, Jurassic World Dominion and Fast & Furious 9. In Saudi Arabia, presales are wild, currently tracking an estimated 32x greater than Fast X at the same point in time and setting a new record. 

We will have much more to come throughout the weekend…