Maybe it’s the circles I move in, but it seems like everywhere I look at the moment I’m confronted by something related to the upcoming Barbie movie. I’m not saying this is a bad thing, I think the movie looks like a ton of fun, but I can’t remember the last time a movie, or any piece of culture, felt so ubiquitous.

It all started last year. I don’t think I’d ever seen so many behind the scenes, or in production images from a film. I wasn’t looking for them either. It would appear that Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling in fluorescent lycra on rollerblades is like catnip to the internet.

There was speculation about the cast – who was in and who wasn’t, who was Emma Mackey, an actor who bears a striking resemblance to Margot Robbie, playing in the film. Then people who were actually in the cast all seemed to be having heaps of fun in London on their days off.

When the first trailer launched in December of last year, the internet exploded and since then everything that Warner Bros. have released about the film to the world has been a constant meme-factory. We’re now just a couple of weeks from release of the finished film and regardless of the quality of the film, it looks set to be the biggest film in the summer, a pretty amazing feat when you consider this summer also includes new films from Tom Cruise, Harrison Ford and the Guardians Of The Galaxy.

From a commercial perspective, at Digital Cinema Media, we sell the advertising reel before a film and with Barbie, all three of the most valuable spots were sold before the first trailer had been released, an occurrence I don’t recall ever happening before.

The question that is being asked by marketers and every film studio around the world is how have Warner Bros. managed this? Let’s not forget this is a film that has been talked about being made for years but until now never actually came to fruition, with previous potential incarnations starring Anne Hathaway and Amy Schumer as Barbie. A Barbie movie was never an obvious slam-dunk.

Firstly, Warner Bros. realised they have a legendary brand that’s instantly recognisable. Barbie is now in her seventh decade and sells over $1bn worth of Barbie dolls and accessories a year. There is also hugely powerful brand recognition – right now I’m at the point where if I see something pink, I assume it’s something to do with the Barbie movie.

They also appear to be having a huge amount of fun with it. Some of the brand partnerships are inspired – the Barbie house on top of a pink XBox, and the Barbie car in Forza Horizon are reaching a demographic who you wouldn’t typically associate with Barbie. There’s also the Barbie dreamhouse which is available on AirBnB. Then there’s Barbie homewares, candles, cosmetics, clothing, rollerblades, toothbrushes, pool inflatables, and there’s even a Barbie themed boat cruise.

Riding Barbie’s cultural wave

It also helps enormously that the filmmakers and cast have completely bought into the fun. Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling are two of the most likeable leading actors in Hollywood and they both seem to be revelling in being associated with something loved by so many, and a world away from their more recent serious film roles in Babylon/Amsterdam for Robbie and Netflix’s aptly titled The Gray Man. Maybe something that just seems so wholesome and fun is what we need in these increasingly challenging times?

There’s also a secondary narrative that has shaped up over the last six months as Barbie is being released worldwide on the same day as Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. The two films seemingly have little in common but Barbie is being released by Warner Bros. who released all of Nolan’s last nine films, going all the way back to Batman Begins, but they went separate ways after the release of Nolan’s last film, Tenet, with Universal only too happy to take over distribution duties on Oppenheimer.

There’s been calls for one of the films to move date as we got closer to release but neither has budged and it may well prove to be an inspired choice for both. Two wildly contrasting films with apparently different audiences have come to be spoken about together in almost any article about either film and the fate of both films seem intertwined with the portmanteau ‘Barbenheimer’ coined to describe both. Universal are surely delighted with Oppenheimer surfing the Barbie cultural wave. Whichever film comes out on top of the box office on the weekend of 21 July, surely cinema is the winner.

The cultural impact of cinema

With the proliferation of platforms and leisure activities fighting for our attention, movie studios have to work extra hard to get our attention and Warner Bros. seem to have struck gold with Barbie. However, for every Barbie or Super Mario Bros. movie or Smile, or M3GAN that seem to cut through the noise and reach more than their intended audience, there’s a film that despite the best efforts of talented marketing teams, can’t quite connect with their audience.

But when it works, like it has with Barbie, nothing can compete with the cultural impact of cinema. Succession is the year’s most talked about television show but in May, when the finale was being broadcast, the buzz still lagged some way behind Fast X, Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3, The Little Mermaid and John Wick according to Ampere’s popularity score data.

The film may get trashed by the critics and the film may under-perform. Yet something has happened with Barbie that rarely happens and the Warner Bros. marketing team have captured lightning in a bottle and almost everything that has been released about Barbie has been warmly received by the public. Let’s hope the final film is too.