With Warner Bros.’ Barbie and Universal’s Oppenheimer set to debut on Friday, Parrot Analytics has assessed the global demand for talent and audience demographics data for
each film.
The two movies, from diametrically opposing genres, have both received critical acclaim, prompting audiences to discuss
a potential double feature of Barbie and Oppenheimer on the same day — aka Barbenheimer.
The Barbenheimer phenomenon has evolved from a simple meme into 40,000 people (and counting) purchasing the double
feature at AMC theaters alone. This warrants a further look at the demand drivers for the two movies, including talent
demand for the cast and an understanding of what type of audiences they are likely to draw to theaters.
Cast ComparisonThe global audience demand for both casts has increased significantly in the lead up to their joint debut.The global demand for the cast of Oppenheimer increased 201% between April 23 and July 16. Over the same time period, the global demand for the cast of Barbie grew 223%.In both cases, most of this growth has occurred in the last few weeks as marketing for each movie increased, and also as
the ‘Barbenheimer’ phenomenon picked up steam.It’s remarkable that the demand for both casts grew at almost the same rate, showing how closely associated with one
another each of these movies has become.
Top 10 Actors by DemandBoth movies feature ensemble casts with highly recognizable actors, although the Barbie stars shine brighter with global audiences than the cast of Oppenheimer, at least for now.Barbie herself, Margot Robbie, has by far the highest global demand of any of the two movies' actors heading into
opening weekend. From June 17-July 16, 2023, Robbie was 39.9x more in-demand than the average talent worldwide. This
places her into our Exceptional demand bucket, meaning she was in the top 0.04% of all talent across all professions
during this time.Before Oppenheimer, Cillian Murphy’s highest profile role was as Thomas Shelby in the BBC/Netflix Original Peaky Blinders. In the thirty days after that show’s series finale debuted on Netflix in 2022, Murphy’s global demand was 6.76x.
During the final lead up to the Oppenheimer debut, Cillian Murphy’s demand is all the way up to 18.8x — a 178% increase over his post-Peaky Blinders demand.
Audience Demographic DataThe audiences for each movie serve as almost mirror images of one another when it comes to both gender and age
breakdowns.Unsurprisingly, the Barbie audience is 66.2% female, while Oppenheimer’s audience is 70.7% male.Barbie’s audience is significantly younger, with 74.6% under the age of 29, with nearly half (46.6%) below the age of
22. A majority of Oppenheimer’s audience is over 30 (52.9%).