The opening success of Warner Bros.’s “Barbie and Oppenheimer” caught the attention of Wall Street. The films have raked in $235.5 million in ticket sales, according to Sunday estimates from the studios. The two films, whose shared release date inspired the term “Barbenheimer” and a social media frenzy, brought large numbers of customers to theaters across the country. Some of them went so far as to wear pink or black — or a combination of the two — to match each film’s aesthetic. “This weekend was a watershed event, with moviegoers embracing new ideas, rather than the steady stream of franchise films dominating the release calendar,” Rosenblatt analyst Steve Frankel said in a note to clients Sunday. ‘Much-Needed Win’ It’s an important time for legacy entertainment companies as they try to recover from the bear market in 2022 while navigating the transition to streaming and Hollywood double whammy. Shares of Warner Bros. Discovery fell more than 1% Monday, but are up 34% since the start of 2023. Comcast parent Universal has gained more than 1% to start the week. Shares are up about 24% this year. Paramount shares were flat Monday and underperformed the market in 2023 with a year-to-date loss of about 8%. said Peter Sopino, managing director of WBD CMCSA and PARA YTD Mountain Warner Bros. Discovery, Comcast, and Paramount in 2023, Warner Bros. Discovery might “finally be able to read some good news about its studio franchise.” He said the positive update could help considering the uncertainty over the schedules of other major films including the latest “Dune” and “Aquaman” installments due to Hollywood hits. KeyBanc analyst Brandon Nispel said “Barbie” was a “much-needed win” for Warner Bros. Pictures. Discovery after the underperformance of “The Flash” earlier in the year. Looking at the box office numbers, Nispel said the weekend will likely be positive for Warner Bros. Discovery stock and neutral for Comcast. On the other hand, he said, it may be a negative for Paramount, as the company’s latest release, Mission: Impossible, may have taken a hit from increased competition. Away from the studios, investors have been watching Mattel stock, which soared in the run-up to Barbie’s release. The toy maker, whose doll inspired the movie, has plans for more intellectual property in hopes of becoming a blockbuster like “Barbie.” As Mattel’s earnings report looms on Wednesday, Gordon Haskett analyst Don Bilson said the question investors want answers is how the hype around Barbie will affect sales in the second half of 2023 and throughout 2024. They’re also wondering if there are revenue drivers for the company outside of toy sales that the film’s success will help. Looking at the bigger picture, he said investors are also considering whether Barbie has established the toymaker as a force in the film industry. However, he said early stock moves suggest the market may be less impressed with Hollywood’s box office performance. Shares of Mattel rose nearly 2% on Monday and gained 10% in July. MAT 1M Mountain Mattel It’s not just Mattel hoping to capitalize on the Barbie boom. More than a hundred companies—including publicly traded retailers like Gap and Kohl’s—have deals with Mattel to sell Barbie-themed products. David Bellinger, an analyst at Roth MKM, noted that Barbie-themed merchandise is still prominently displayed at the Five Below retailer, with many items selling out online. This is clearly part of a trend, Bellinger said, in that the company has leaned more toward the Barbie version than it did with the movie-related products that came out earlier in the year. While “recognizing that a small subset of products associated with a particular license or group of products may not materially raise the companies’ sales in the near term, a prolonged trend from this new IP address could drive traffic to FIVE stores and reach a new customer recruited in the process,” he said in a note to customers. Analysts said that the big screen there is also a reading of stocks related to the movie theater. This weekend Eric Wold noted that IMAX screens managed to “completely dominate” the Oppenheimer shows. According to Wold’s statistics, IMAX accounted for about a quarter of the domestic box office revenue with only 411 screens and about a fifth of the global box office with only 740 screens. “We have consistently highlighted IMAX Corporation (IMAX) as the best way to restore the global exhibition industry,” he said. “We believe that the continued over-indexing of IMAX screens in the post-pandemic cinematic environment provides evidence of a structural improvement in consumer demand toward the format.” The stock gained more than 6% on Monday. It’s up about 20% this year. Wold said IMAX might also have some padding if Hollywood strikes prompt studios to delay releases. That’s because local language titles that aren’t affected by the downtime could bring in up to a third of the IMAX box office revenue this year. That could be good news for movie theater chain AMC Entertainment, according to Wedbush analyst Alicia Reese, because AMC has more IMAX theaters than competitors. But she said investors’ focus was divided with a Delaware judge’s decision to block an AMC stock conversion plan on Friday. Shares of the meme stock rose in extended trading on Friday following the ruling. The stock rose more than 30 percent on Monday. — CNBC’s Michael Blum contributed to this report. Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC. NBCUniversal is the distributor for Oppenheimer.
