There’s No Predicting What This Summer’s Barbenheimer Could Be
By Dan Brown When I ask “What will this summer’s Barbenheimer be?” I don’t mean just which movie or movies will top the box office. I mean something broader. I mean, “What will capture the public’s attention between now and Labour Day?” What will we look back on as a cultural marker, in the future to come? Just as, when we discuss pop culture, we now talk about “before Barbenheimer” and “after Barbenheimer,” what motion picture, show, comic book or event will get people excited, fire the collective imagination, and inspire funny memes?You may recall the giant fuss. It culminated in the dual release on July 21, 2023 of Barbie and Oppenheimer. The first was a movie about a doll, the second a film about the father of the atomic bomb. These two stories appeared to have nothing in common but a release date, yet the odd combination of cute toy and doomsday weapon somehow caught the collective fancy. I knew both movies were in the pipeline, but until I spotted a friend tweeting about her plans for “Barbenheimer,” the term was unknown to me. Neither flick was on my radar. Maybe you were like me. And yes, I got caught up in the frenzy – as millions of people did. How excited was I? I actually ventured out to a theatre! Because it drew even casual moviegoers, Barbie wound up being the global box-office champ for the year. Oppenheimer claimed the third spot on that list, but got its revenge at the Oscars in March when it won seven prizes, including the award for best picture. Sure, you can write Barbenheimer off by saying it was simply an instance of spontaneous grassroots marketing. But that doesn’t preclude the facts: It was on everyone’s list of things to do, it prompted gazillions of posts on social media, it wormed its way into the zeitgeist, it gave people everywhere something to look forward to and talk about.For other examples from the past, think along the lines of Beatlemania, Woodstock, Star Wars, “Who shot J.R.?” Live Aid, Y2K, the first season of Survivor, Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code and the Taylor Swift/Travis Kelce romance. So yeah, will this summer have an equivalent cultural eruption? From the vantage point of mid-June, all we can do is guess. Maybe it will be Pixar’s Inside Out sequel, which outperformed expectations on its opening weekend to generate nearly $155 million in domestic ticket sales. One thing we know for sure is this year’s Barbenheimer won’t be Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, which bombed when it was released in late May. There are other possibilities. The series Baby Reindeer is a Top 10 show for Netflix, and seems to have legs. Even though you may not have seen it, you know it’s popular because the show has already inspired at least one lawsuit. The latest Deadpool sequel, in which he teams up with the presumed dead Wolverine, is set to land in theatres next month. And I’m sure Marvel’s comic division would love for its latest event series, which ties together the entire universe of superheroes in a common struggle, will be on everyone’s pull list. It’s called Blood Hunt and the premise is perpetual night has fallen on the Marvel Universe, allowing the company’s many vampire characters to run riot. Fans of the comic 30 Days of Night – set in Barrow, Alaska – will recall it had a similar setup. There’s also a chance a summer concert or live comedy series might take off, becoming the hot ticket of 2024. Or maybe it will be something from outside the world of pure entertainment.The 2024 Euro Cup is already drawing eyeballs to small screens and soccer fans to public houses. Plus the Olympics are bound to prompt their share of heroic moments – although I could do without Vladimir Putin continuing his habit of invading another country during or just after the Games. If you have any predictions for the Barbenheimer of 2024, I’d love to hear them! Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 31 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
