Blockbuster Pileup: Can ‘Oppenheimer,’ ‘Barbie,’ ‘Indiana Jones 5’ and ‘Mission: Impossible 7’ All Survive in the Same Month?
Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter At the end of last summer, Flix Brewhouse faced a dire situation, albeit one that wasn’t unique to the Texas-based movie theater chain. There weren’t any movies to show in August. “We were going to A24 or Briarcliff Entertainment saying, ‘Does anyone have anything we can put on our screens?” recalls Chris Randleman, the company’s chief revenue officer. That’s not the case this summer as exhibitors grapple with a different reality. Can several back-to-back blockbusters succeed at once? Or will the glut of big movies cannibalize each other? Those are the big questions as popcorn season kicks into high gear with the arrivals of Harrison Ford’s “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” (June 30), Tom Cruise’s “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” (July 12), Greta Gerwig’s neon-coated “Barbie” (July 21) and Christopher Nolan’s atomic bomb drama “Oppenheimer” (also on July 21). All of those films carry big budgets and require outsized ticket sales to turn a profit.