By Nina Heyn
It used to be called counter-programming. Studios would, for example, plan to release a comedy skewed to female audiences on a Super Bowl weekend, reasoning that women who would not want to watch football games all day might want to go with their girlfriends to the movies. No longer. Oppenheimer and Barbie were scheduled to open on the same July weekend, and thanks to social media and some very deft marketing, a new social phenomenon arose—watching these two completely different movies on the same day as a double feature became a thing to do. The phenomenon has been dubbed “Barbenheimer”; thousands of viewers prebooked tickets and, in some locations, tickets have been sold out for popular times and days. Millennials and Gen Z-ers, inspired by TikTok posts and the trending social media, have decided en masse that this is the summer when they will watch both Oppenheimer and Barbie on one day.
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