The Race to Recreate Barbenheimer

Captain Midnight [Applause] this video is brought to you by Trade coffee so I have made a lot of negative videos about the state of the film and TV industry lately for good reason but this month managed to deliver the biggest weekend number since 2020 with movies people were actually enthusiastic about thanks to Barbie and Oppenheimer and the barberheimer phenomenon that won't be news to any of you but I think it's worth a deeper look now to be clear I do think both films still would have done well without the double feature concept being everywhere online both were really well marketed and audiences have generally been really into both of them but I think it's undeniable that barberheimer helped propel them to another level which as the studios must be great but I think also must be a little frustrating since at least at first the concept seemed to gain traction organically it's not something that Universal or Warner Brothers planned for all of that adds up to a pretty fascinating situation one where the studios will be desperate to recreate that craze but without a clear road map of how to do so and with a 2023 schedule that leaves them with very little to capitalize on the momentum of a massive July new Superstar Barbie doll with Long Street Hair even jewelry you can put on or take off and now so I'll be honest the idea for this video came after I saw this tweet from Paramount Pictures where they tried to get hashtag saw Patrol going as a thing thanks to saw 10 and the Paw Patrol movie opening on the same day now from what I can tell this isn't really taking off but my intention here isn't to pick on the Paramount social media people but to illustrate the fact that the barberheimer trend is already being factored into film marketing it may not seem like much now but I'm willing to bet we're gonna see a lot more of this kind of thing and it's going to become a lot more manufactured as time goes on for years there was this assumption that online hype around a movie doesn't necessarily translate to a hit film one of the best examples of this would be 2006's Snakes on a Plane where Movie Forums and blogs latched onto the title and garnered the film a ton of extra coverage in magazines like Entertainment Weekly only for the movie to come out and completely underwhelm both critically and at the box office but of course the internet of 2006 is very far from what it is now where a tick tock Trend like gentle minions can Propel an already successful movie even higher completely blindsided in the studios obviously if you are Universal when that was happening that's a very good thing but it also has to be frustrating that these Trends seem pretty far out of their control and I wouldn't be surprised to see them continue to try to cultivate those Trends themselves as we're already seen with saw Patrol I'm really interested to see if that will work and how far they'll try to go to make it work because I'm really not sure it can unless they get a little underhanded and secretive about it and just plant things I seriously doubt that these Trends would have cut on if they were clearly coming from the Studio's marketing the fact that it bubbled up from the internet seemingly organ organically is a huge part of the appeal to people and any attempt to replicate that is gonna feel extremely forced and obvious and probably turn people off and with barberheimer it was really helped by probably the most important fact here that these were actually movies people were excited about seeing and this is where the video becomes a bit of a continuation of my last one about the state of Hollywood right now because despite the fact that I'm sure all the studios are going to be paying very close attention to the success of Barbie and Oppenheimer I wouldn't be surprised to see them learn all the wrong lessons from it and completely fail to capitalize on the momentum that barberheimer has gifted them these are movies that have people going back to the theaters in droves in a way we haven't seen since 2019 and in game and not State the obvious here but to keep people coming back to get theater going back up to the levels that it was pre-pandemic they need to continue releasing movies that people want to see instead said the studios who seem dead set on not coming to the negotiating table to cut a fair deal with their workers are trying to make their remaining schedule last for as long as possible delaying a bunch of movies out of 2023 and some even out of 2024. this does seem pretty in line with that one Anonymous executive stated agenda to quote allow things to drag out and tell union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses which is pretty gross it might shoot them in the foot as the remainder of 2023 is already a little sparse for big movies and is only getting sparser really hot then there's the Mattel of it all the toy company that has made no secret of their plan to become the next Marvel they've had movies in development for a long time like the Lena Dunham directed Polly Pocket but now with Barbie being a massive massive hit at least some of those 45 projects they have in the pipeline will probably actually make it out of development hell stuff like JJ Abrams Hot Wheels or a Magic 8-Ball movie that will apparently be a PG-13 Thriller and maybe they really will have the next wave of hits but honestly like is anyone super excited about getting most of these movies honestly I want to know some of them like the major Matt Mason movie that Tom Hanks is attached to are based on toys that I'm too young to even remember it's a confusingly huge slate and one that I have a hard time picturing becoming the next big thing and Mattel toys are a pretty Far Cry from comic books with decades and Decades of stories to tell Barbie proved it could be done with the clever take from Greta Gerwig but you know I'd be pretty shocked if people are as excited for like the view Master movie Barbie may be an IP film but if there's one thing it and Oppenheimer have in common it's that they're both very writer director driven movies with both Gerwig and Nolan coming in with their own scripts and very strong Visions for what their specific takes on these stories are and I think it's that not a giant grab bag of Ip or trying to hop on social media trends that I really hope Studios take a real lesson from someone like Christopher Nolan started his career when ambitious low to mid-budget Thrillers like Memento and insomnia were still getting made it's a lot more difficult for for young directors now to get those sorts of chances instead often going from Tiny indie films to having not very much power on huge franchise movies now Nolan did do big franchise movies obviously but he had time to craft a strong identity as a director before Batman and that's something I'd like to see more directors get to do Nolan is one of the few remaining directors that can get a mass audience interested with his name alone that's becoming more and more rare and most of the few other directors that can say the same are really getting up there in age and probably won't be making films in 10 or 15 years I mean even Tarantino who is comparatively young to someone like Martin Scorsese is apparently about to do his last one I think there's a lot of talented young directors who could build that kind of relationship with the audience but that's so much harder with IEP movies where the brand or character not the director is what people tend to remember there's always going to be a play place for those movies but there needs to be room for other stuff too and I think Oppenheimer a three-hour period piece that almost no other director would be able to get Finance shows that there is an audience for it as well I'm sure the studios will try a lot of ways to recreate the barmanheimer phenomenon but at the end of the day I think it's clear that the real answer is to make bold interesting looking movies that people really really want to go to the theater to see but I want to know what you all think did you see Barbie or Oppenheimer did you like him did you hate him what do you think was the key to their success and I guess are you excited for these other Mattel movies I'll be reading it all down in the comments below there's no worse feeling than needing a cup of coffee in the morning and realizing you're totally out I used to encounter that all the time but it hasn't been an issue once since I started with Trade coffee trade is a coffee service that makes it simple to discover new coffees from over 55 top Indie Roasters enabling you to make your best cup of coffee at home every day whatever your taste and coffee happens to be trade curates it just for you meaning it also happens to be a lot better than that grocery store stuff I've had a bunch of their red bags show up at my door now and I always look forward to it this week I had the West pole dark roast it's a little darker than I 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Channel: captainmidnight

Views: 541,095

Keywords: Barbie, Oppenheimer, Barbenheimer, movies, reaction, Captain Midnight, review, captainmidnight, Ken, Greta Gerwig, Margot Robbie, Chris Nolan, Nolan, trend, trailer

Id: ICY8NMWIRwQ

Length: 10min 8sec (608 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 30 2023