‘Oppenheimer’ will be released in Japan after criticism over its marketing
The blockbuster “Oppenheimer” will be released in Japan in 2024, a local distributor announced Thursday, quashing speculation about the film’s rollout there after criticism of its online promotion.
Bitters End, a Japanese film distributor, did not give an exact date for the Universal Pictures film’s opening in Japan, but said it would happen next year.
This summer’s simultaneous release of “Oppenheimer,” the bleak biopic about the creation of the atomic bomb, and “Barbie,” a fantastically plastic tale of a doll’s awakening, was a dissonant mash-up that delighted movie fans. The “Barbenheimer” moment spawned fan-made merchandise, memes and copious cross-promotion of the two feature films.
But many in Japan took offense, with critics saying the Barbenheimer meme downplayed the horrors of the US military’s nuclear strikes that killed hundreds of thousands, mostly civilians, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The hashtag #NoBarbenheimer spread widely on social media, with some vowing to boycott watching “Barbie,” which was released in Japan in August.
The backlash even sparked conflict between the films’ distributors after the official “Barbie” movie social media account playfully responded to fan-made Barbenheimer creations — including a photoshopped image of a Barbie wearing an atomic bouffant.
In an unusual rebuke, a Japanese subsidiary of Warner Bros called its headquarters’ approval of the meme “highly regrettable.” Warner Bros. later apologized for engaging in “insensitive social media” and deleted his responses to the memes.
The decision to release “Oppenheimer” in Japan came after “several discussions and considerations,” Bitters End said in a statement Thursday, according to to local media. The distributor said he was aware that the film’s “subject matter has a very important and special meaning for us Japanese”, and said he felt the film should be seen in cinemas. Bitters End did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Foreign films are often released in Japan much later than their original distribution, sometimes years, but when promoters there initially failed to set a release date, the marketing backlash caused speculation that “Oppenheimer” would not be released at all. It has grossed nearly $1 billion in box office sales worldwide.
‘Barbie’, the highest grossing Warner. Bros. film of all time worth nearly $1.5 billion, debuting just weeks after its initial release in Japan. But its reception in Japanese theaters was modest, and some local commentators speculated that the Barbenheimer controversy had cast a shadow on the film.