Following the much awaited weekend battle at the box office of new releases Barbie and Oppenheimer, a map breaks down which states showed a preference for each film over the weekend, with results falling along shockingly political lines.
The pair of films grossed a combined $235.5million at the domestic box office - Barbie accounting for $155million of that figure, and Oppenheimer for the other $80.5million.
One Instagram account further broke down those numbers by using a US map to illustrate which states sprung for the origin of the nuke, and which wanted to dissolve into a world made out of pink.
The map, created by an account called india.in.pixels and based on Google trends from last week, showed that the pattern of preference closely matched the standard political breakdown of the US electoral college.
Southern states almost universally showed a higher appreciation for Barbie, while northeastern states, California and Washington positioned themselves in favor of the new Christopher Nolan flick.
The Barbenheimer map of the United States after the films' opening weekend reflected a shockingly similar split to the US electoral map during a presidential election
View this post on InstagramIn a video showing how the Barbenheimer map would translate to an electoral college map, even stronger similarities to a presidential election come into view.
Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin - all key swing states - remained neutral over the weekend, with neither Barbie nor Oppenheimer taking a significant lead.
The hypothetical electoral map shows Republicans with 240 electoral votes and Democrats with 243 at the end of the Barbenheimer showdown, meaning those swing states - as in real life politics - would become the deciding factors for getting one team or the other over the 270 vote finish line.
The so-called 'Bible Belt' or 'SEC Country', including Louisiana, Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia, the Carolinas, Arkansas, and Tennessee all backed Barbie - with some states, like Mississippi, favoring the pink-dominated picture by a margin of 20 points.
Democratic strongholds like California, New York, New Mexico, Colorado, Minnesota, and the entirety of New England were reliably Oppenheimer states - New Mexico by the largest margin by far, likely due to the state's personal history with the development of the nuclear bomb.
Some who saw the Barbenheimer map were surprised by the way the two movies' popularity broke down.
'I'm surprised. California is ripe for Barbie to trend higher, simply based off of politics alone,' wrote one Instagram user.
Others felt that the nationwide breakdown made perfect sense: 'Checks out. No way someone from Mississippi could comprehend Oppenheimer,' wrote another.
The electoral college map of the 2020 election illustrates how similar the Barbenheimer opening weekend map is to the breakdown of the real American political landscape
The pair of films grossed a combined $235.5million at the domestic box office - Barbie accounting for $155million of that figure, and Oppenheimer for the other $80.5million
Then, there's the wave of people who feel attention is being diverted from the actual most important film in theaters right now.
'Sound of Freedom is the only movie anyone needs to see,' wrote Kiley Ross.
'Sound of Freedom should be the top trending movie!! everybody needs to wake tf up,' wrote Jason Garner.
Since its July 4 release date, the Angel Studios thriller about child sex trafficking has upended industry expectations, raking in nearly seven times its $14.5 million budget in North American ticket sales and comfortably outpacing several big-ticket blockbuster films for several weekends since its release.
Prior to Barbenheimer's massive opening weekend, it marched past the $100million domestic gross benchmark.
Barbenheimer weekend obliterated box office records with an estimated $465 million in ticket sales globally for the two highly-anticipated films' opening weekend
The Barbenheimer numbers are in! Oppenheimer, starring Cillian Murphy, 47, took second place with over $80 million domestically and $165 million globally
The Greta Gerwig, 39, directed film about the iconic doll is the second biggest opening of all time. Only Avengers: Endgame in 2019 did better with $402million
Big deal: Moviegoers are turning out in droves for both films, with many opting to see both in a double feature
Barbie has broken a number of records this weekend including the largest grossing day of the year at $70.8 million for Saturday (previously held by Super Mario Bros' $54.8 million), largest opening weekend for a movie based on a toy (previously held by Transformers: Rise of the Dark's $144.4 million), and the largest non‐sequel, non‐remake film released in July, beating The Secret Life of Pets' $104.4 million opening in 2020.
Barbie has already surpassed the lifetime grosses of many of other female-led movies, including Ocean's 8's $297.7 million, Birds of Prey's $205.3 million and Little Women's $218.8 million)
The Christopher Nolan, 52, biopic is his highest opening weekend ever and the best-ever opening for an R-rated film, topping John Wick: Chapter 4's $73.8 million.
There has never been an opening weekend with one film grossing more than $100 million and a second making more than $50 million as Barbie and Oppenheimer have.
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