Warner Bros and Universal Pictures have announced the box office previews for Barbie doll And Oppenheimerrespectively, and there is a clear winner.

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Before the films were released simultaneously on Friday (July 21), analysts were predicting that Barbie doll could earn up to $100m (£77.8m) at the US box office in its opening weekend, while Oppenheimer is pegged at around $50m (£38.9m).

Preview earnings, released on Friday, seem to support these predictions like Barbie doll earned $22.3 million (£17.3 million) in the US across 3,900 cinemas.

Meanwhile, Universal said Oppenheimer raised $10.5 million (£8.2 million); it was previewed in fewer theaters though Barbie doll (3,150).

By comparison, DunkirkChristopher Nolan’s last film to hit theaters outside of the Covid pandemic, earned $5.5 million (£4 million) in preview box office revenue in 2017.

Barbie dollThe film’s early box office return topped any other film released this year, signaling an unexpected fortune for Warner Bros., director Greta Gerwig and star Margot Robbie, who also served as executive producers.

Both films received critical acclaim; Even so, Nolan’s photo included Gerwig’s photo in a post on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes.

OppenheimerIts score makes it Nolan’s best-reviewed photo to date. His next best movie is the second of his Batman trilogy, dark Knight (2008), scoring 94% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Starring Irish actor Cillian Murphy in the title role, Oppenheimer tells the life of theoretical physicist J Robert Oppenheimer, who pioneered the development of the first nuclear bomb.

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Barbie dollmeanwhile, Margot Robbie plays the famous Mattel doll, who is on a mission to visit the real world to understand her true purpose.

independence‘s reviews go against the norm on Rotten Tomatoes. Our film critic Clarisse Loughrey gave Gerwig five stars for Barbie doll while giving Nolan’s effort four stars is almost perfect.

“Barbie doll is one of the most innovative, elaborately staged, and most surprising mainstream films in recent memory – a testament to what can be achieved even in the innermost viscera of capitalism,” she wrote.

despite calling Oppenheimer “The best and most revealing work” by Nolan, Loughrey argues that the film is sometimes “a little too self-conscious about itself and the way cinema creates its own reality”.

Meanwhile, writer and filmmaker Paul Schrader described Nolan’s film as “the best” and “most important film of this century”.

“I’m not a Nolan fan but this blew the door off its hinges,” card counter (2021) written by the director.

Both Oppenheimer And Barbie doll now out in theaters.