In 1975, the ‘summer blockbuster’ was born. Jaws was a watershed moment for the film industry, which historically banked on people visiting theatres for warmth and entertainment in the winter months. Steven Speilberg’s ominous marketing campaign, ‘just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water,’ was a resounding success, driving customers from the beaches into the movie theatres. The challenge today is no different, and in 2023 we have two polar opposite films going head-to-head for the top prize on 21st July to be crowned this summer’s blockbuster hit.
The studios in question are Universal Pictures and Warner Brothers, the latter of which is celebrating its centenary anniversary this year. Universal Pictures is going to the races with Oppenheimer, the highly anticipated Christopher Nolan drama documenting the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Manhattan project. Warner Bros. is taking a very different turn with the release of Barbie, directed by Greta Gerwig which will follow the famous doll having an uncharacteristic existential crisis. It seems like the perfect gender war, boys versus girls, but it’s much more than that. The proof will be in the box office figures and how well its pre-release marketing and subsequent word of mouth will spread to get more footfall into theatres.
BARBIE
Barbie has been in the works for years, and the first online still of the movie surfaced in 2022 with real life Barbie and Ken (Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling) on Venice Beach in skin tight get-ups and roller skates which Robbie in promotional interviews has called ‘the most embarrassing day of my life.’ This wasn’t an accident, it was a stunt that thrived on an open set that courted the attention of onlookers. Warner Brothers wanted to showcase Ken and Barbie being made a mockery of in the real world.
It was clear to the studio that this couldn’t be your average action film of a doll brought into the real world. And they were acutely aware that a doll over 65 years old needs a good bit of freshening up for the modern age. As post-production continued, online virality started earlier this year when a variety of ‘Barbies’ and ‘Kens’ debuted through Warner Bros. social channels. Each of the characters had the same name, highlighting the diversity of Barbies and Kens, without a diversity of names.
After socials were exhausted, the trailers started which were drip fed. At first, they started with humour, casting the net out as wide as they could mainly by making fun of the innocence of the dolls with Ken wanting to spend the night with Barbie but having no idea what they were meant to do. In future trailers, it got darker and the words of Greta Gerwig started to shine through. The ads started alluding to the Barbie movie as a kind of existential drama, a kind of meta approach where she escapes Barbie Land and heads to Los Angeles only to be confronted by ‘reality.’ Trailers said that the movie was for ‘those who love Barbie and those who hate Barbie’ appealing to both the diehards and the cynics. This meant they could capture those with no affinity, as well as those so deeply entwined with the Barbie brand that they are only too delighted to see Barbie as three dimensional.
Warner Brothers didn’t stop there, they made Barbie come to life, with a real life Airbnb listing for Barbie’s Malibu Dream house, complete with floating letters in the pool spelling out KEN. Even Margot Robbie taking Architectural Digest through the dream house as if it was the doll herself brough Barbie into the modern age. It’s Barbie’s world and this summer we are living in it
OPPENHEIMER
The tagline for Oppenheimer is leading with ‘The World Forever Changes’ and will focus on that pivotal point in our history as a society where a development was made and we could not go back.
In terms of marketing, Universal Pictures has taken a softer touch approach to Oppenheimer, maintaining a meek and sombre tone prior to release. They have not promoted it anywhere close to the level of Barbie, but in many ways they know they won’t have to. Nolan’s name has its own cache that acts as its own marketing currency that doesn’t have to be budgeted for.
In a kind of freak accident, parts of the Warner Brother lot caught fire over the last week. The smoke could be seen billowing out of buildings on the backlot, creating a strange image that could be interpreted as a nuclear mushroom cloud behind a fluorescent pink billboard for the Barbie movie, with some people commenting humourously ‘the Oppenheimer promo begins.’
May the best summer blockbuster win.
FILM FOR THOUGHT 