UPDATE: Warner Bros. has issued a press release announcing Barbie will be “available for early Premium Digital Ownership at home and 48-hour rental via PVOD on participating digital platforms where you purchase movies” from Sept. 12.
With the possible exception of Sony, there’s not a studio in Hollywood that loves shooting itself in the foot quite like Warner Bros., but it seems the boardroom has dodged another potential mishap of its own making after deciding against releasing Barbie on digital and VOD in the near future.
Of course, anybody with half a brain and the merest hint of a pulse could tell you that there’s still money to be made from keeping Greta Gerwig’s monster in multiplexes, where it continues to be one of the biggest box office hits on the planet over a month into its release and with more than $1.3 billion in the bank.
Barbie was initially scheduled to be made available for home viewing tomorrow, but WB saw sense and decided to push it back to Sept. 12 instead. However, in major territories like the United States and the United Kingdom, the promotional material has been updated and changed to read “date not announced” per insider and analyst Luiz Fernando, which makes sense considering it pulled in another $13.1 million across the four-day Labor Day frame to remain the second most-watched feature Stateside.
It earned almost the same internationally, too, so the only losers in sending Barbie to small screens and devices the world over would be Warner Bros. considering it’s bringing in $26 million after seven weeks in theaters, with $1.4 billion well within touching distance before it finally exits stage left and arrives on VOD.
Ironically, though, Oppenheimer would probably have a much better chance at hitting a billion if the first half of the year’s culture-defining portmanteau were to abandon ship.