If you’ve passed through any social media feeds in the past few weeks, there is a good chance you’ve come across the most hyped film of the summer. Perhaps you’ve seen one of the posters – a blonde woman in neon pink gazing up at a giant explosion, or the now iconic image of the same blonde woman’s face merged with a man’s, their white and black cowboy hats blending together with almost miraculous precision. Or maybe you’ve been bombarded with ads for the film’s merch – tote bags, t-shirts and hats are, it seems, everywhere. We are talking, as you may have guessed, about Barbenheimer.

Barbenheimer is, of course, not actually a real film – rather, it is a bizarre product of the internet itself. The imaginary film emerged as a mash-up of two of the year’s most anticipated movies: Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. When Twitter discovered that the two films were set to premiere on the same day, July 21, the two films soon became an unlikely but inseparable duo, with film fans eagerly preparing for what promised to be a thrilling, if emotionally perplexing, double feature.

What is so delightful about the emergence of Barbenheimer is that the combination of these two films feels simultaneously like a pleasing absurdity and a work of destiny. At first glance, the films could not be more different. One is shot in black and white and set in a very real (and very serious) moment in World War II history – the other takes place in a candy coloured world of shiny plastic. One is about the creation of the atomic bomb – the other, about… well… dolls. The two films are, at least aesthetically and tonally, almost exact polar opposites. To combine them is absurd on a comical level. Or is it?

Somehow, Barbenheimer kind of works. And it’s not just the uncanny cowboy hats. There is a grandiosity and a larger than life element at play in each film that complements the other perfectly.

Many people assumed that the shared release date would lead to a conflict for interest for the two films. Barbenheimer has been something of a surprise. Instead of one film receiving all of the discourse, both have been gifted what is essentially a free marketing boost.

Not only have film fans been combining images of the two films and discussing their plans to see both in the same day, the imaginary mash-up film even has its own very real merchandise and Wikipedia page, cementing its place within internet lore. Even Cillian Murphy, star of Oppenheimer, has acknowledged the brilliance of Barbenheimer, saying, “I can’t wait to see Barbie,” to the Spanish publication La Vanguardia. “I love Margot Robbie, I love Ryan Gosling, I want to see them now. I don’t know what the debate is about, although it’s not that I have an overwhelming opinion about it either. My advice would be for people to go see both, on the same day. If they are good films, then that’s cinema’s gain.” For once, Cillian, there is no debate with Barbenheimer, only good vibes.

Aside from being, quite simply, very fun, the Barbenheimer meme is a reminder of the ever-changing face of film marketing. It’s unlikely that either team purposefully chose July 21 as a release date in the hopes that their film would receive extra hype by association. Instead, it has been a lucky accident.

And yet the world of memes evidently has a very large role to play in a film’s success. Just look at M3GAN, which came out in January to sold out audiences after the creepy AI doll dance from the trailer went viral on Twitter and TikTok. And then there was last year’s press saga surrounding Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling, in which memes about the rumoured behind-the-scenes drama made the film one of the most talked about features that year.

Barbenheimer is an utter joy. But it also has the potential to be a fascinating case study within the trajectory of film marketing. As memes continue to do so much heavy-lifting, but remain notoriously tricky to predict or even orchestrate, it will be interesting to see if any more Barbenheimers emerge in the years to come.

Image: Sean Longmore/ Layered Butter