The film was released on the same day as Barbie, a fantasy comedy film directed by Greta Gerwig based on Mattel 's Barbie fashion dolls and media franchise, and distributed by Warner Bros. Many speculated that the decision by Warner Bros. to release Barbie on the same day as Oppenheimer was made in order to deplete ticket sales of Oppenheimer as retaliation for Nolan releasing the film with Universal. Due to the tonal and genre dissonance between the two films, many social media users created memes about how the two films appealed to different audiences, and how they should be viewed as a double feature. The trend was dubbed " Barbenheimer ", and was described as counterprogramming during a summer of "entertainment industry meltdown". Cillian Murphy had endorsed the phenomenon, saying "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."