Barbie has brought back a slumbering cinema audience

It has achieved what Top Gun: Maverick, Avatar: The Way of Water, and The Super Mario Bros. Movie failed to do.

It's no surprise that Greta Gerwig's Barbie is raking in the cash, smashing one record after another. It's a monumental success that while it may not have saved the struggling cinema from destruction, there's no doubt that it has brought back moviegoers who haven't visited a cinema in years.

With doomsday headlines and streaming being crowned the new king, most people were convinced that going to the cinema was something to be written into the history books. Something to tell the grandchildren. When the cinemas reopened, business was also slow. It wasn't really until Top Gun: Maverick that things really turned around and since then the industry has slowly but surely stabilised. Yet despite great success, many people still stayed at home, but now it turns out that Barbie has attracted some of that audience back.

According to The Quorum, an American film tracking service that has interviewed 1,800 cinemagoers, as many as 22% have been people who have not been to the cinema since before the pandemic broke out or can even remember when they last visited a cinema. This means that other post-pandemic cinema hits, such as Top Gun: Maverick, Avatar: The Way of Water, and The Super Mario Bros. Movie have not made these people want to part with their comfy sofa for a ticket.

Based on these figures for the total number of tickets sold, this means that approximately nine million Americans returned to the cinema for Barbie alone. 40% of respondents also say that the film made them remember how much they loved going to the cinema and will start going more often. 45% would like to continue going but the price is a deterrent. 15% say that it will take a film like Barbie for them to go again.

Perhaps Barbie is the film that will ensure that the next generation has a cinema to go to. A future generation that may also carry on the Barbie legacy as People reports that Nameberry, a baby name website has seen a 603% increase in searches for the name Barbie and 293% for Ken since the first trailer was released in April.