Francis Ford Coppola says Barbenheimer points to “golden age” of moviegoing

Coppola has pointed to Barbie and Oppenheimer’s box office success as signs people want to see non-franchise movies on the big screen.

It seems so rare that the Movie Brats – the batch of New Hollywood directors who changed the game forever (for both good and bad, depending on your perspective) in the late ‘60s and ‘70s – have something positive to say about today’s cinema. But one, Francis Ford Coppola, thinks we could be in a renaissance for big screen movies, offering praise for the box office reception of, yes, Barbenheimer.

In an Instagram AMA session (yes, Coppola has Instagram; no, we can’t confirm that Sofia taught him how to use it, although he did confirm he was the one in charge of the AMA), the maestro said that the collective turnout at the movies for both Barbie and Oppenheimer, which have pulled in around $1.2 billion worldwide total so far, is a sign that people don’t just want to see major franchises on the big screen. “I have yet to see them, but the fact that people are filling big theaters to see them and that they are neither ‘sequels’ nor ‘prequels’… no number attached to them meaning they are true one-off’s is victory for Cinema.”

Based on the monumental turnout for these movies, Coppola said he is beyond hopeful for the state of the cinemagoing experience, adding, “My hunch is that we’re on the verge of a golden age wonderfully illuminating cinema seen in large theaters.” Here’s hoping his passion project, the $100+ million Megalopolis, can find the proper audience to recoup its budget, which is reportedly being financed by Coppola himself.

The 84-year-old Coppola has been outspoken against certain modern movies before, criticizing the likes of Marvel because “we expect to learn something from cinema, we expect to gain something, some enlightenment, some knowledge, some inspiration,” which he says such fare doesn’t offer. While he did continue to dismiss franchise flicks in his remarks, he is at least moving in a more positive direction with his take on the state of the box office.

Do you agree with Francis Ford Coppola that we could be heading towards a “golden age” of going to the movies? Where do you think Barbie and Oppenheimer will land on the top highest-grossing movies of 2023?