Oppenheimer and Barbie doll pre-sale in India: Christopher Nolan’s movie sells 90,000 opening day tickets, Margot Robbie’s star loses out with 16,000 tickets
This week, two Hollywood movies with very different genres and target audiences will compete for box office worldwide. The filmmakers of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, starring Cillian Murphy, and Greta Gerwig Barbie, starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, are vying to draw audiences into the film. Oppenheimer sold 90,000 tickets on the first day, compared to Barbie’s lead of 16,000.
According to a social media post by journalist Himesh Mankad, Oppenheimer sold 90,000 tickets on the first day alone across three cinema chains: PVR, INOX and Cinepolis. The Barbie doll, which went on pre-sale in India days after Oppenheimer, sold 16,000 tickets on its first day.
Recently, during an interview with Sucharita Tyagi, Cillian revealed that he read the Bhagavad Gita before playing the role of theoretical physicist J Robert Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer famously said that he thought of a quote from the Gita in the immediate aftermath of successfully testing the world`s first atomic bomb in 1945. When the test concluded successfully, Oppenheimer, who was also a student of Sanskrit, thought, “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”
Cillian said, “I did read the Bhagavad Gita in preparation, and I thought it was an absolutely beautiful text, very inspiring. I think it was a consolation to him, he kind of needed it and it provided him a lot of consolation, all his life.” When asked his learnings from Bhagavad Gita, Cillian joked, “Well don`t grill me on it!” The actor then added, “I just found it very beautiful.”
The film also stars Robert Downey Jr, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon and Florence Pugh, is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and the late Martin J Sherwin.
Barbie stars Margot Robbie as the titular doll, and Ryan Gosling as Ken. In the U.S., Barbie is likely to significantly outperform Oppenheimer in its first week because of her appeal.
