Redolent

Filtered.

I thought movie promotion was about sticking to the script and focusing on the key soundbites, not about being outspoken.

This was filmed at the Barbie launch in Saudi Arabia. Women talking about how they either played a lot with Barbie in their childhoods and it’s very nostalgic, or if they didn’t (had an alternative doll called Fulla), it was still great to see all these other women dressed in pink and feeling like they’re part of the same event.

She said separately that she watched the original animation once, was terrified of it and never watched it again. It’s clear that she strongly dislikes it in general, possibly hates it. There's not much nuance beyond this, and for some people it raises all the old questions about why ‘adapt’ something so clearly distasteful, and is it even the same product by the end. It made me think of the Barbie marketing campaign, and the line: ‘if you love Barbie, this movie is for you / if you hate Barbie this movie is for you’, and how that worked so well: it both drew in audiences who really connected with the brand, but also kind of rehabilitated it to those who had genuine problems with Barbie. Since Greta is involved (interestingly, she was added on as a screenwriter, not the original one), I’m hoping we get some of that more inclusive language coming through.

Various clips are gaining a lot of traction on social media, especially TikTok right now, with mostly women chipping in. They feel that different types of ‘feminism’ are being pitted against each other, that choosing or wanting love is an entirely legitimate desire alongside being a ‘boss’. My personal opinion (yes, as a woman) is that the love presented in Snow White isn’t exactly that empowering or agentive. But I still stand by the fact that Zegler is a poor communicator and the conversationshouldn’t be so divisive (or maybe as @Valonqar noted it’s done that way on purpose)

No. Actors are supposed to be promoting their movies. If you’re cringe and annoying as fuck to listen to, you’re not exactly doing that are you? Go listen to Zegler roll her eyes and sarcastically quip that it’s not 1937 anymore and tell me ‘it’s just sexism preventing the masses from appreciating her charisma’.

She’s a walking PR disaster. Sounds abrasive in interviews, always talks in a scolding tone.

I think the Evil Queen has been cast, Snow White’s stepmother? Agreed about the lack of nostalgia, although some people seem to absolutely adore that film. I don’t. I have a young daughter and I have zero interest in showing her the traditional Snow White - not because “girl-bossism” is the only message I care about, but because the story and character is so overwhelmingly passive that it’s not worth bothering with.

I don’t know why people struggle so much to acknowledge that this is a significantly reworked adaptation of the fairytale. There are many aspects of the story that would need to change for a modern adaptation anyway. Reworking the fairytale IS an artistic and creative choice, done for deliberate reasons by the writer(s) and producers of the show, even if many people don’t like it. Denying that there are changes doesn’t actually help the cause of the movie or what they’re trying to do it, which is a kind of reinvention of the classic. Fairytales imo aren’t sacrosanct. Many are deeply troubling in what they depict particularly re: female sexuality, violence, misogyny. If you are used to exploring these themes like Greta Gerwig is, you will use the script as an opportunity to tease out these contradictions. Much as happened with Barbie in a different way. Now, will the movie alienate many people due to loss of ‘nostalgia’ factor? Yes. Will the alternative presentation be so compelling as to draw in new and different audiences? That’s yet to be seen here. Lastly, it seems obvious to me that the term Snow White originated in the colour of the skin. I don’t care myself, but there’s no point pretending otherwise. Casting Zegler is a deliberate choice and a sign that the ‘rules’ of this story will be upturned. Snow White - The Brothers Grimm (1812) IT WAS the middle of winter, and the snow-flakes were falling like feathers from the sky, and a Queen sat at her window working, and her embroidery-frame was of ebony. And as she worked, gazing at times out on the snow, she pricked her finger, and there fell from it three drops of blood on the snow. And when she saw how bright and red it looked, she said to herself, “Oh that I had a child as white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as the wood of the embroidery frame!” Not very long after she had a daughter, with a skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood, and hair as black as ebony, and she was named Snow-white. And when she was born the Queen died.

Really, in what sense? I thought the first weekend would draw more casuals for the double feature including women.

The gender split for Oppenheimer’s second weekend (THR) - not sure most people would have expected that. *** Interestingly, females made up even more of Barbie’s audience in the film’s sophomore outing domestically, buying up 71 percent of all tickets. Often, a film’s gender split will shift in subsequent weekends, as it did with Oppenheimer. Males showing up to see Oppenheimer over the July 28-30 weekend shrunk somewhat, to 58 percent of the audience, while the female audience grew from 38 percent to 42 percent.

Managed expectations seem to be key with a lot of general audiences enjoying Oppenheimer. Just knowing that it’s a dialogue heavy drama, and maybe even grasping basics of who the main people involved are (esp Strauss) makes all the difference.

This discussion highlights that, from a commercial standpoint, Nolan was right to make Oppenheimer a purely subjective story. Any significant incorporation of Japanese narratives would have alienated some audiences and stirred geopolitical controversy .

Remove ‘intelligence, culture and range’. Insert ‘predilection’. Job done.

It’s great that the movie’s out and doing so well, but I kind of miss the anticipation and buildup, having no clue what’s coming up, hunting and analysing scraps of early reactions from shady Reddit and Twitter nobodies 😄

This. You’re asked which of these following movies you know about, and it’s like ‘oh Haunted Mansion…sounds familiar *shrug - checks box*’. Same with the likes of Indiana Jones which also had very high awareness.

Evening showings are about 60-70% capacity. Very good but not quite the madness of the last few days.

Ah right, pretty sure they were released on Monday. Possibly!

In my local UK cinemas, Barbie seems busier during these last weekdays than it will be during the upcoming weekend. Similar with Oppenheimer but to a lesser extent.

There’s a rumour on TikTok of a ‘15 minute full penetration sex scene’ and an absurd number of people seem to think it’s true. A colleague cited it as a reason not to go with a member of their family.

When should we start seeing evidence of Oppenheimer drawing in more of the older generation of moviegoers? A lot of advertising was clearly geared towards them, but so far the turnout is striking in terms of how young it is.

The narrative for the longest time was that MI would most likely eat into Oppenheimer’s audience, and of course Barbie had a different audience so was mostly irrelevant. The idea that both would team up to become a giant force only really started to appear by the end of April.

No, those were the kinds of nasty comments Schumer was eliciting - everywhere - when she was mentioned in relation to the movie. And it was ‘oh I’m so glad we got Margot’ instead. This is about the nostalgia factor and how it’s triggered when people feel you’ve cast a Barbie who looks like a ‘Barbie’. Is Barbie ‘woke’? In some ways yes, but in other ways, not at all.

Barbie hit the ‘nostalgia’ factor partly because it had Margot Robbie, aka the ‘ideal’ Barbie - slim, white, pretty, blonde - front and centre in the marketing. When people were mocking the idea of Amy Schumer as Barbie, it’s not just because they don’t like her or her comedy, but also because she’s basically seen in some quarters as “fat and ugly” (sorry). So in some ways, Barbie was absolutely marketed as classic nostalgia fare. No commentary yet on Snow White and how it manages to achieve that or not.

The way Barbie is packing out UK cinemas on weekdays is pretty sensational.