Margot Robbie has said that she refused to move the release date for Barbie to make way for Oppenheimer at the cinema.
- READ MORE: ‘Barbie’ review: Greta Gerwig’s grown-up toy story is fantastic fun
In a new interview, Robbie was speaking to star of Oppenheimer Cillian Murphy about the success both films had over the summer.
Barbie became the highest-grossing movie of the year worldwide, and the highest-grossing film ever by a female director while Oppenheimer broke multiple cinema records this summer including becoming the fourth highest-grossing IMAX release of all time internationally and the highest grossing film biopic of all time.
Robbie asked Murphy if he thought “so many people were gonna watch a movie about the making of the atomic bomb” to which he laughed and replied: “Um…no! [Director] Christopher Nolan was always determined that it would be released in the summer as a big temple movie. That was always his plan. And he has this kind of superstition around that date, the 21st,” he continued, explaining that his films are released on or around that date.
Robbie then joked: “I mean, it’s a good day” before revealing that one of Oppenheimer’s producers then rang her and asked her to change the date of release of Barbie, something she refused.
She explained: “I remember one of the producers, [Charles] Roven called me ’cause we worked together on some other projects. He was like, ‘I think you guys should move your date.’ And I was like, ‘we’re not moving our date. If you’re scared to be up against us, then you move your date.’ 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. I think this is a really great pairing actually. I think it’s like, it’s a perfect double billing. Oppenheimer and Barbie.’
Murphy then went on to joke, “It was a good instinct” to which Robbie replied: “Clearly the world agreed!”
You can watch the interview in full here:
Murphy then went on to say that he thought the ‘Barbenheimer’ phenomenon over the summer showed “the appetite that the audience has for cinema.”
Robbie replied: “Everyone talks about the algorithm. I’m like ‘how on earth is an algorithm tracking me because I have such an eclectic taste?’ If you look, you’d be like, ‘wow, she’s going from that black and white film from the twenties to Love Island so like, what box do I put her in?’ …But the fact that people were going and being like, ‘oh, watch Oppenheimer first, then Barbie. I was like, ‘see you don’t, people like everything, people are weird. People have specific and wide ranging tastes.’
Murphy replied: “and they don’t like being told what to do. Audiences don’t like being told You should see this or you should see that. They will decide and they will generate the interest themselves. And I think, I think what happened with both of our movies was a case in point of that, that the audience decided, you know that this was correct and this was right.”
Meanwhile Robbie recently shut down rumours of a Barbie sequel in a new interview after earlier reports suggested a follow up may be on the cards.
“I think we put everything into this one, we didn’t build it to be a trilogy,” she said. “Greta put everything into this movie, so I can’t imagine what would be next.”