In the modern Hollywood landscape, it is exceedingly rare to have more than one major movie release on the same weekend. Studios don’t like anything that might hinder box office success, leading all studios to try and stay out of each other’s way. There are exceptions, of course, as we saw a couple years ago with Barbie and Oppenheimer. Now we’re there again thanks to Lilo & Stitch and Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.
When Barbie and Oppenheimer shared a release date, it was such an unusual move that it got its own nickname, Barbenheimer. Whether because of the shared release date or in spite of it, both movies went on to great success, leading to one of the biggest box office weekends in recent memory. It’s no surprise that AMC Theaters is looking to recreate that magic this weekend with two more big releases in what the theater chain has dubbed Stitchpossible.
As names go, it’s not a bad one, even if it now means I’ll have the Kim Possible theme song stuck in my head all day with the name replaced. Now I want an animated series where Stitch is a secret agent doing all sorts of wild stunts in order to stop the villains.
Whether or not we’re in for another Barbenheimer remains to be seen, but the possibility certainly exists. Lilo & Stitch is exactly the sort of Disney live-action remake that tends to make a boatload of money. It’s a largely faithful to the original remake of an already popular Disney movie that’s old enough to be nostalgia bait for Gen X.
While things are a little less clear for Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, the movie still has the potential to hit its own blockbuster numbers. The previous film in the franchise, Dead Reckoning, was something of a box office disappointment, but the film was still dealing with pandemic fallout. Speaking of Fallout, the movie in the series before that one was the highest-grossing of the franchise. Add to it the fact that this is being billed as the last Mission: Impossible movie for Cruise, and audiences may turn out to say goodbye.
Barbenheimer certainly proved that having competition at the box office is not a guarantee of failure. It was clearly felt that Barbie and Oppenheimer would appeal to audiences that were different enough that they wouldn’t cannibalize each other’s box office. That was true, but even the audience that wanted to see both largely did. If the same thing happens here, and it certainly can, we could have another big weekend at the box office. Although you can be sure whoever wins will tell everybody about it.