July 21, 2023. The day that the cultural phenomenon Barbenheimer was released, which are the movies Barbie and Oppenheimer. “Hi, Barbie” was heard everywhere. It was like the entire world came together to spend an entire day in the movie theater enjoying a double feature with both movies. Earlier that summer, Spider-Man Across The Spiderverse, Mission Impossible-Dead Reckoning: Part One, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and Asteroid City were all released in theaters. CNN reported that summer 2023 had a 19.2% increase in gross from the previous year. How did this happen? The phenomenon of Barbenheimer started with the announcement of the two movies releasing on the same day. After that, the internet led the marketing with various Barbenhiemer memes along with Margot Robbie dressing as different Barbie dolls for the press, which the Post Independent Newspaper deemed as a “master marketing strategy”.
Since then movie marketing strategies have soared to get an increase in interest to even buy a movie ticket. 2024 blockbusters like Dune 2 and Challengers used the master marketing strategy of Zendaya. Granted Dune 2 already had buzz around it from its prequel Dune, but even Dune used Zendaya as a marketing strategy. Looking at Challengers, which was a love triangle with Zendaya, helped sell tickets to everyone, including me, who wanted to see Challengers as a result of Zendaya finally playing an adult role. The use of on-theme movie popcorn buckets has helped gain money as people want a chance to buy a collector’s item. The Dune 2 movie popcorn bucket was very interesting and it made people even more interested in seeing the movie for just the chance to purchase the bucket. Despicable Me 4 and Deadpool & Wolverine followed suit in releasing their own popcorn buckets with a baby sling bucket and a Wolverine head.
TikTok has also garnered more hype around movie releases. In 2022 when Minions: Rise of Gru was released, the movie alone made the whole franchise’s movie gross rise above 4 billion, yet the movie experience made theater workers want to quit. Why? The trend, a Variety article states, was to dress up in suits to see the long-awaited release of the movie. It was deemed the “gentle minions” trend but certain rowdy crowds have tarnished most groups of these “gentle minions” that wanted to see the movie. Edits on TikTok of movies also have made users want to see the movie even though the edit is a short clip. Twisters, for example, has had a train of hype on TikTok as the aesthetically pleasing edits of tornadoes and tornado chasers have made users curious to see how the movie played out. Movie marketing is one of the most important factors in making or breaking how well a movie does at the box office and how many people even want to see it in the first place.
