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The movie-going experience has taken a big hit over the years due to the ease and convenience of streaming services and the aftershocks of the COVID-19 pandemic. The simultaneous summer release of two major big hit pictures, Barbie and Oppenheimer, revitalized audiences’ love for the big screen. Thus, Barbenheimer was born – a double feature opening weekend celebrating two contrasting movies that made an event of going to the movie theater!
While both films were acclaimed by both regular audiences and critics alike, there’s no doubt the power of the films together was what made the box office numbers soar. Now that big studios see what works, it’s likely opposing movie entities could attempt to work together for the mutual benefit of their usually rival feature films.
‘MUFASA: THE LION KING’ (July 5, 2024) and ‘DESPICABLE ME 4’ (July 4, 2024) will both be releasing on the same weekend.
Which one do you plan on watching first? pic.twitter.com/q0Llm7r8R4
— The Hollywood Handle (@hollywoodhandle) August 24, 2023
The Hollywood Handle announced on X (formerly Twitter) that Disney’s Mufasa: The Lion King and Universal Pictures’ Despicable Me 4 will premiere the same summer holiday weekend in July 2024. Mufasa is set for July 5, while Despicable Me is set for July 4. Could these recognizable, fan-favorite franchises create the next Barbenheimer phenomenon?
We Think Not – Here’s Why
Greta Gerwig’s Barbie from Warner Brothers and Christopher Nolan‘s Oppenheimer from Universal Pictures was a match made in odd couple heaven, and the gods of social media smiled upon them. The films’ starkly different themes, tone, and color palate birthed a global Barbenheimer meme that everyone wanted to get in on. Not to mention the star-studded casts of each flick…
Credit: Disney
READ MORE: Disney Reveals Details of ‘Lion King’ Prequel – ‘Mufasa’
The fact is that Mufasa and Despicable Me are just too similar in demographic and come from already well-established franchises. There’s nothing excitingly new to get hyped about ahead of these family films. The star power for these films still exists – Steve Carrell for Despicable Me and (maybe) James Earl Jones for Mufasa – but because their faces don’t appear, just their voices over animated characters, there won’t be a fan pull similar to Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, and Cillian Murphy.
Credit: Universal Pictures
The nail in the coffin for the opening weekend team-up of the Disney and Universal movie is the fact that there’s no catchy way to combine their titles- at least not that I’ve heard of. Muspicable? Desfasa? Mufasicable Me? Despicable Lion…no. See what I mean?
Unless you and social media can come up with something better, I’d say these films are on their own opening weekend.
