Oppenheimer has only been in theaters for a few days, but star Cillian Murphy is already thinking about his next gig — and his fans have some ideas.
Murphy, 47, recently fielded a question from Cinefilos about whether he would say yes to appearing in a potential Barbie sequel after months of Barbenheimer memes casting him in opposition to Margot Robbie.
“Would I play a Ken in Barbie 2?” Murphy said with a laugh. “Sure, yeah! Let’s read the script, let’s have a conversation.”
Murphy, who plays atomic bomb creator J. Robert Oppenheimer in Christopher Nolan‘s film, went on to note that he was looking forward to seeing Barbie, which was directed and cowritten by Greta Gerwig. “I can’t wait to see the movie,” he said. “I think it’s great for cinema. You’ve got all these great movies happening this summer.”
Barbenheimer became an object of internet fascination after social media users realized the two vastly different movies shared the same Friday, July 21, release date. While the jokes started as an online gag, the conversation seems to have helped the films at the box office. Barbie, came in first place with $162 million, giving it the biggest opening weekend of the year and the biggest opening ever for a movie directed by a woman.
“This historic result reflects the intense heat, interest and enthusiasm for Barbie,” Jeff Goldstein, Warner Bros. president of domestic distribution, said in a statement. “This doll will indeed have long long legs.”
Oppenheimer, meanwhile, pulled in more than $82 million. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the two movies’ massive success marks the first time a three-day weekend has seen one film open with more than $100 million and another with more than $50 million.
Cinemark, one of the largest theater chains in the U.S., said Barbenheimer delivered their biggest summer weekend of all time.
“People love coming together to experience great storytelling in a movie theater, as proven yet again by the sheer volume of consumers who visited our locations to see Barbie and Oppenheimer during opening weekend,” Cinemark chief marketing and content officer Wanda Gierhart Fearing told THR. “It appears Barbie actually is everything, and Christopher Nolan fans turned out in droves to see his newest masterpiece in the larger-than-life theatrical format that he intended.”
No one involved with Barbie has made any announcements about a sequel amid all its record-breaking achievements, but the movie’s impressive debut is a sign that audiences are here for life in plastic. Robbie, 33, hinted last month that Barbie could certainly become a franchise, but she noted that no one was thinking about that possibility while working on the project.
“I think you fall into a bit of a trap if you try and set up a first movie whilst also planning for sequels,” she told TIME in June. “It could go a million different directions from this point.”
