Will the Barbie (2023) movie be a box office success within one week of its theatrical release?
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862
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resolved Sep 9
Resolved
NO

The market resolves to YES if the Barbie movie grosses >=2.5 times its cost (production + marketing) in total box office earnings worldwide a week after its theatrical release; else, it resolves to NO.

As of writing, the movie's production budget is $100 million but its marketing budget undisclosed.

Jan 2, 2:14am: Will the Barbie (2023) movie be a box office success? → Will the Barbie (2023) movie be a box office success within one week of its theatrical release?

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I can't find the exact numbers, but:

  • Barbie (2023) needed to make $737,500,000 in the first week for this market to resolve YES.

  • Domestically, Barbie (2023) had made $258,402,851 seven days after its release.

  • Internationally, Barbie (2023) has made $771,897,087 in the fifty days after its release.

  • Domestically, Barbie (2023) had made 42% of its current (50 days after release) box office by one week after release. If this ratio holds, it would have made $324,196,777 internationally in the first week.

  • If the assumption holds, then Barbie made $582,599,628 in its first week. This is a number that tracks with comments from other people on Manifold, as well as a quick Google search I did that suggested Barbie made more than $500 million in its first week but less than $600 million.

As such, I am confident resolving this to NO.

💡 I am using my moderation permissions to resolve this market on behalf of the creator. This is according to the Manifold Markets unresolved markets policy found here.

If the creator returns and wishes to change the resolution, please reply to this comment and tag @DavidChee. The admins will then undo the resolution I chose and you may pick your desired resolution.

predicted YES

Can resolve?

predicted NO

Can resolve?

bought Ṁ500 of NO

It seems that outside the anglosphere the movie really falls flat: the jokes and culture don't translate well

predicted NO

10h before market closure, worldwide boxoffice is around $408 million.

If, as Variety reported, the marketing budget was actually $150M+, the 2.5x figure jumps to at least $737.5M.

sold Ṁ157 of YES

Excuse the betting thrash, I kept misreading this question and Acceleration ate me up ><

Isn't the production budget $145M and not $100M? So if you assume a ~$245M production + marketing budget, you have a bar of $490M+ (edit oops, 2.5x is 612). Weekend might be around $300M worldwide.

predicted NO

@wustep Yea everywhere I have seen was production is $145M and marketing was $100M+. So 2.5x would be ~$612M+

predicted YES

@SirCryptomind Oh oops 2.5 not 2, my b!! Makes sense

The traditional “2.5x” rule is as a multiple of the production budget, not the marketing.

bought Ṁ25 of NO

I agree with TwirlInhurl here, your metric for "box office success" is wack and the odds on this market should not reflect the odds people would assign to the title of this market.

predicted YES

@Adam Thanks for the input. Have rephrased the title to better reflect the description and odds placed thus far.

predicted YES

@bryantanjw oh wow I did notice the "within a week" bit, that's way more strict

"The market resolves to YES if the Barbie movie grosses >=2.5 times its cost (production + marketing) in total box office earnings worldwide at the end of its opening week"

Why does it need to earn that much in the opening week? Typically, the 2.5 times the budget rule of thumb applies to the complete theatrical run.

predicted YES

@bflytlegmailcom The thinking was that movies with an empirically similar level of hype seem to break even (and then some) at the worldwide box office level during their opening weekends. Beyond the general rule of thumb, I guess the sense of "box office success" here is too attributed to a wow factor typically (and quite arbitrarily) evoked in the first week of release. I admit that a little more thought could've been put into the market resolution, lol.

P.S. better rephrased the market description from "at the end of its opening week" to "a week after its theatrical release" to fit the resolution date.