This Barbie is not moving her premiere date.
Margot Robbie revealed Tuesday that one of the producers for the film “Oppenheimer” once tried to convince her to push the release date of ‘Barbie” back.
“One of your producers, Chuck Roven, called me, because we worked together on some other projects. And he was like, ‘I think you guys should move your date,’ ” Robbie, 33, told Cillian Murphy during their chat on Variety’s Actors on Actors.
“And I was like, ‘We’re not moving our date. If you’re scared to be up against us, then you move your date,’ ” Robbie told Murphy. “And he’s like, ‘We’re not moving our date. I just think it’d be better for you to move.’ ”
“And I was like, ‘We’re not moving,’ ” the “Barbie” co-producer said.
According to the “Suicide Squad” actress, she believed that the two movies — which were later dubbed “Barbenheimer” due to their simultaneous launches — were the “perfect double billing.”
“Clearly the world agreed. Thank God,” Robbie added. “The fact that people were going and being like, ‘Oh, watch “Oppenheimer” first, then “Barbie.” I was like, ‘See? People like everything.’ People are weird.”
Murphy praised the Australian actress’s “good instinct.”
“I think it happened because both movies were good,” Murphy, 47, told Robbie. “In fact, that summer, there was a huge diversity of stuff in the cinema, and I think it just connected in a way that you or I or the studios or anybody could never have predicted.”
He added: “And they don’t like being told what to do. They will decide, and they will generate the interest themselves.”
Robbie noted that perhaps most of the hubbub surrounding the two films was due to directors Greta Gerwig and Christopher Nolan competing at the box office.
“I think they were also really excited by the filmmakers,” the “Wolf of Wall Street” star went on. “People were itching for the next Chris Nolan film and itching for the next Greta Gerwig film. To get them at the same time was exciting.”
Murphy, meanwhile, revealed that Nolan had a particular reason for his film’s release date.
“Christopher Nolan was always determined that [‘Oppenheimer’] would be released in the summer as a big tent-pole movie. That was always his plan, and he has this kind of superstition around that date,” the “Peaky Blinders” alum explained.
“[His movies always come out] in or around the 21st of July, or it could be always the 21st. They always come out then.”
Several memes about the two films were created to celebrate the double showings.
Since dancing its way into theaters, “Barbie” has grossed more than $1.4 billion in global ticket sales and dethroned “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2” as the biggest Warner Bros. movie ever.
“Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine something like this,” Gerwig, 40, said about the film’s success. “I wanted to make something anarchic and wild and funny and cathartic, and the idea that it’s actually being received that way, it’s sort of extraordinary.”
As of August, “Oppenheimer” surpassed $500 million, setting the box office record for the highest grossing film set during World War II.
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