Oppenheimer Fell One Jennifer Aniston Salary Short from $1B Club

Summary:

• In summer 2023, Barbie and Oppenheimer were both on track to joining the prestigious $1B club.
• Barbie successfully made over $1.4B, but Oppenheimer fell just $42M short of making it into the list.
• There are few movies that crossed the $1B mark, and ten times fewer that earned over $2B.

Barbenheimer was the primary sensation of the summer 2023, and for a good reason — we were all speculating about the two movies’ critical and commercial success and rooting for them both to join the $1B club. Unfortunately, only Barbie made it, and Oppenheimer fell short. No, scratch that: it fell painfully short.

Oppenheimer’s Box Office Haul Was Almost There

In the entire history of cinema, only a handful of movies managed to cross the huge $1B box office mark. In the Barbenheimer duo, only Greta Gerwig’s Barbie joined the club, officially becoming the 53rd movie to have grossed such a staggering sum; but Christopher Nolan ’s Oppenheimer had one foot in the doorway of the club, too.

According to Box Office Mojo, Oppenheimer earned $957,830,395 at the worldwide box office, falling just $42,169,605 short of making it into the elite list of commercial heavy-lifters. For reference, that’s how much Jennifer Aniston alone earned in 2023 — and 1.5 times less than Margot Robbie made from her lead role in Barbie.

Oppenheimer was painfully close to crossing the $1B, and fell just a tiny bit short.

The $1B Club Isn’t Even the Most Exclusive

While joining the ranks of the few movies that grossed over $1B is a gargantuan task few can succeed in, this list isn’t even the most exclusive one: throughout the decades of cinema history, several movies have earned much more. How about doubling the mark? How many movies have grossed over $2B at the box office?

Adjusted to inflation, The Avengers fell just $2M short of joining the $2B club with its $1.98B earnings. Avatar: The Way of Water, Avengers: Infinity War, and Star Wars: Episode VII have all successfully passed the mark with $2.32B, $2.41B, and $2.57B box office haul, respectively. But only Avengers: Endgame has crossed the next huge mark, earning $3.22B in total. You can see the full list in our article here.