In an incredible scheduling twist, it was revealed this week that two hotly-anticipated movies that couldn’t be more different — Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, a gritty biographical film about the man who is widely credited with creating the atomic bomb, and Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, which finally brings Mattel’s blonde doll to the big screen — will both be opening on July 21, 2023, promising the box office battle of the century.
Both films are stacked with a murderer’s row of A-List talent, with Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, and Robert Downey Jr. starring in Oppenheimer and Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling stepping into Ken and Barbie’s plastic shoes. But despite the talent involved, it was presumed that there would not be a ton of audience crossover between the two films, for reasons that are plainly evident.
That is, anyway, until it was revealed today that Barbie is completely ignoring fan service and won’t be featuring Aqua’s hit single hit “Barbie Girl” over the opening or closing credits sequences — or anywhere in the film, for that matter. It’s like, the year 1997 went and gave you the perfect thing, and you’re just not going to use it?
Unfortunately, the reasoning likely boils down to acrimonious lawsuits lobbed back and forth between Mattel and MCA Records following the release of the song, and it would appear that neither side is willing to budge. (As of yet, anyway, there’s still time for cooler heads to prevail!)
Gerwig wrote very nice letters to Justin Timberlake, Dave Matthews, and Alanis Morissette asking for permission to use their songs in Lady Bird that did the trick, so maybe it’s time to break out the stationery.
But for now, disappointed fans took to social media, not only to express their disappointment with the omission, but to declare themselves firmly Team Oppenheimer.
A lot of people also had the same joke about where “Barbie Girl” will appear. (Spoiler, it’s Oppenheimer.)
Put “Barbie Girl” in Oppenheimer, you cowards. It doesn’t matter that the song predates the series of events in the movie by over 50 years — it’s a little something we’d like to call “art.”