The box office may have enjoyed one of its biggest-ever weekends, but a well-received horror proved to be the biggest casualty by far

In a rare case of expectation and reality being in perfect sync for once, Barbie and Oppenheimer did exactly what everybody expected them to do and tore the box office a new one this past weekend.

Breaking records without a care in the world, July 21 fully deserves its place in cinematic history as a once-in-a-generation event, even if a three-hour biographical epic revolving around one of the most important moments in human history taking on a blockbuster toyetic comedy couldn’t be more different on every imaginable level.

Let’s not forget the likes of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, Sound of Freedom, or Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, either, all of which played their part in propelling the domestic Top 10 to its fourth-highest cumulative total ever, and highest in four years since Avengers: Endgame premiered.

Unfortunately, there always tends to be one casualty in situations like this, and in a turn-up for the books that doesn’t come along very often, it was horror’s turn this weekend. Lionsgate’s Cobweb might possess The Boys‘ Antony Starr and Lizzy Caplan as its leads, as well as solid Rotten Tomatoes ratings of 63 and 76 percent from critics and crowds, but it didn’t even manage to chart.

Sure, it wasn’t a wide release playing on thousands of screens like its vastly more expensive counterparts, but witnessing a horror come along and sink without a trace at the box office is a phenomenon that’s just as rare – and painfully ironic – as Barbenheimer itself.