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Barbie is expected to have a bumper box office run in the Middle East as the film opens in the UAE and Saudi Arabia on Thursday with record-breaking ticket pre-sales despite facing competition from several Bollywood and South Indian releases, including Rajinikanth’s Jailer and the Sunny Deol–starrer Gadar 2.
The Margot Robbie– and Ryan Gosling–led film has already crossed the $1 billion mark globally at the box office, and UAE exhibitors have confirmed that pre-sales of the Warner Bros. production have already exceeded that of Oppenheimer, the Christopher Nolan–directed drama that released internationally on the same day as Barbie, leading the double released to be dubbed ‘Barbenheimer’.
The box office juggernaut also put filmmaker Greta Gerwig in the record books as the first woman to surpass the billion-dollar benchmark as a solo director.
Roxy Cinemas, which opened Barbie ticket pre-sales nearly a week prior to its release in the UAE, confirmed they had to add extra screenings to meet the demand after the shows slated for the film’s opening weekend sold out.
“For Barbie, we start shows as early as 10 am and have showtimes slotted for every 30 minutes,” said Murray Rea, Director – Operations, Roxy Cinemas, Dubai Holding Entertainment, who attributed the “strong hype for the movie in this market” largely to the film’s international marketing campaign.
According to Box Office Mojo, the online global box-office reporting and analysis service, Oppenheimer is currently the fourth highest-grossing movie of 2023 in the UAE, having earned $5.37 million since its release on July 20. Figures shared by UAE distributors Phars Films revealed that the Cillian Murphy–led film recorded a total admission count of 361,849 in the first three weeks of release, beating films such as Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Fast X and Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
Box office forecast
Initially slated to release mid-July, Barbie’s Middle East outing was delayed until the movie received clearance from the UAE Media Council earlier this month, prompting a frenzy in ticket sales even as several local retailers pushed their pink-laced marketing campaigns to keep with the viral theme that has swept the globe. Soon after, Saudi Arabia announced the movie would screen in the kingdom, with Bahrain following suit.
UAE-based independent filmmaker Faisal Hashmi said he was confident Barbie would emerge as one of the biggest revenue-makers this year, with local box office numbers reflecting this. “While audiences around the globe were divided in the ‘Barbenheimer’ box office clash, what is working in Barbie’s favour in this region is the timing of the release with no other big-ticket Hollywood productions slated for the August 10 weekend,” Hashmi said.
Ahmed Golchin, the founder and chairman of movie distribution company Phars Films and Star Cinemas in the UAE, has more conservative expectations of the movie’s earnings.
“‘Barbie’s release in this region comes at a time when we have 20 films vying for space this weekend, including several Bollywood and South Indian films. What we are seeing essentially is a buffet at the theatres that will eventually divide audiences, which could work in any film’s favour,” he said, adding that 65 screens were dedicated to screening Barbie at Star Cinemas on its opening weekend.
The might of Bollywood in the UAE is visible in the numbers, with Shah Rukh Khan–starrer Pathan emerging as the biggest grosser of 2023 so far, earning more than $6 mln in ticket sales according to Box Office Mojo, followed by the Tom Cruise–led Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part One, which was partially shot in Abu Dhabi and earned $5.92 mln in revenue.
Hashmi agreed that while the large South Asian diaspora in the UAE could gravitate towards a Rajinikanth- or a Deol-led action-adventure, word of mouth would eventually sway the tide in Barbie’s favour.
“While Barbie may not command premium screens across parts of the country which largely cater to Asian audiences, the movie has legs, and that will carry it into the bigger screens in the coming days,” he said.
Based on the popular doll by Mattel, Barbie’s meteoric box office success is largely attributed to the film’s feminist undertones, with Jeff Goldstein, Warner Bros’ president of domestic distribution in the US, calling its achievement “a watershed moment”.
(Reporting by Bindu Rai; editing by Seban Scaria)
