In the battle of the bomb vs. the bombshell, asks Variety, why not both? Plenty of moviegoers are making the decision to watch Christopher Nolan's atomic drama Oppenheimer and Greta Gerwig's colourful romp Barbie on the same day when the two tentpoles hit theatres on July 21, reports Variety. With two weeks to go until the big day, AMC Theatres, the world's largest cinema chain, is reporting that more than 20,000 AMC Stubs members have purchased tickets to watch Barbie and Oppenheimer on the same day. Barbie: Sam Smith Reveals They Are the Final Artist on the Soundtrack of Margot Robbie's Film, Their Track 'Man I Am' to Release on July 21!

Though it was apparently significant enough for AMC to issue a press release, notes Variety, it's hard to contextualise the statistic because there aren't a lot of comparable data points for guests purchasing tickets to see multiple movies on the same day -- at least not ones that are publicly available. The total number of AMC Stubs members, which includes A-List, AMC Stubs Premiere and AMC Stubs Insider, is unclear. Adam Aron, CEO of AMC, said in early 2020 that there were between 900,000 and 1 million A-List subscribers, which starts at $19.95 per month. Oppenheimer: Director Christopher Nolan Says He Wrote the Screenplay for Movie From a First-Person Perspective.

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On paper, as Variety points out, it may not at all seem like these films are catering to similar audiences. Oppenheimer, starring Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr and Emily Blunt, is a dark and gritty three-hour-long story about the American theoretical physicist who led the efforts to build the weapons of mass destruction that ended World War II.

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Barbie, led by Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, is a neon-hued fantasy comedy about Barbie-Land expats Barbie and Ken, who go on a quest of self-discovery in the real world. According to early tracking quoted by Variety, Barbie is expected to outpace Oppenheimer in inaugural ticket sales. But there's a chance that Tom Cruise's big-budget sequel Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One, which opens on July 12, could end up again in the top spot on domestic box office charts over the weekend.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 11, 2023 01:09 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).