‘It’s a perfect double billing’

Margot Robbie revealed she was mastermind behind ‘Barbenheimer’ while appearing with Cillian Murphy on Variety’s Actors on Actors, which dropped Tuesday.

Greta Gerwig’s comedy about the 1959 Mattel Barbie doll, and Christopher Nolan’s biopic on the ‘father of the atomic bomb’ J. Robert Oppenheimer were both scheduled to be released on the same day – July 21. 

The Australian 33-year-old – who produced Barbie – recalled the moment Oppenheimer producer Chuck Rove called her and said, ‘I think you guys should move your date.’

‘And I was like, “We’re not moving our date. If you’re scared to be up against us, then you move your date,” Margot explained.

‘And he’s like, “We’re not moving our date. I just think it’d be better for you to move.” And I was like, “We’re not moving!” I think this is a really great pairing, actually. It’s a perfect double billing, Oppenheimer and Barbie.’

The Irish 47-year-old told Robbie: ‘That was a good instinct.’

‘Clearly the world agreed. Thank God!’ the two-time Oscar nominee exclaimed.

‘The fact that people were going and being like, “Oh, watch Oppenheimer first, then Barbie.” I was like, “See? People like everything.” People are weird.’

The odd pairing clearly worked based on the sheer amount of hilarious memes that went viral leading up to the release of the two films.

‘Weren’t there some great ones?’ Margot asked Cillian.

‘People are so clever. People kept asking me, “So is each marketing department talking to each other?” And I was like, “No, this is the world doing this! This is not a part of the marketing campaign.”‘

Murphy replied: ‘And I think it happened because both movies were good. In fact, that summer, there was a huge diversity of stuff in the cinema, and I think it just connected in a way that you or I or the studios or anybody could never have predicted.’

Robbie said: ‘You can’t force that or orchestrate that.’ 

The Golden Globe nominee shot back: ‘No, and it may never happen again.’

$145M-budget Barbie wound up amassing an eye-popping $1.4B at the global box office and scored an 88% critic approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Meanwhile, $100M-budget Oppenheimer amassed $953.2M at the global box office and scored 93% critic approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.