Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos has claimed that both the Barbie and Oppenheimer films would have been equally successful if they were released on the streaming site. DiversityTed said that both films ‘would have found an equally large audience on Netflix.’ Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer and Greta Gerwig’s Barbie released on the same day, July 21. (Also read: Margot Robbie opens up about crunch ahead of Barbie filming: ‘I spent years getting this movie started’)
What did Ted say?
The report further states that Ted said, “I don’t think there’s a clear answer to that because the best version of something might work really well for Netflix, but it just hasn’t worked. There are obvious reasons, like we don’t do breaking news and things like that, because I think there are a lot of other mediums for that. People don’t look to us for that.”
When asked about the phenomenal success of Barbie and Oppenheimer, he said, “Both of these films would be great for Netflix. They would definitely find a huge audience on Netflix. And so I don’t think there’s any reason to believe that certain types of films are or are not successful. There’s no reason to believe that any one film is better for all people on any screen size. My son is an editor. He’s 28, and he watched Lawrence of Arabia on his phone.”
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Although both Barbie and Oppenheimer are from completely different genres, their battle at the box office gave birth to a meme called Barbenheimer, as people were confused about which movie to watch first.
Greta Gerwig’s satirical film starring Margot Robbie as Barbie and Ryan Gosling as Ken grossed over $1 billion at the global box office. Christopher Nolan’s J. Robert Oppenheimer biopic, starring Cillian Murphy, came pretty close to that figure.
