If you have been following popular culture trends in the last year, you won’t have missed Barbie and Oppenheimer, two vastly different films that were released on the same day in July 2023.

The Irish Times reports that Barbie was Ireland’s highest-grossing film ever, and another report claims Oppenheimer made more than €12 million in its opening weekend alone. Fans began to name the duo “Barbenheimer”, often viewing the films back-to-back in the cinema.

Fast forward to February 2024, and both films have been nominated for (and won) several top accolades, including Golden Globes and Academy Awards.

Interestingly, while the cultural shift of Barbenheimer seemed to happen overnight, each of these box office smash hits was years, even decades, in the making. As an entrepreneur, there is plenty to be learned from what went on in the making of these two sensational films.

Keep reading to find out four lessons Barbie and Oppenheimer could teach business owners about achieving long-term success.

1. It may take years for your hard work to pay off

Although Barbie was released successfully in July 2023, the film actually took 14 years to make.

Back in 2009, Barbie’s parent company Mattel signed a contract with Universal Pictures, Vanity Fair reports. The original project fell apart quickly, but in 2014, various writers and actors signed on to a new version of the film before either leaving or being dropped.

With the cogs still struggling to turn in 2018, the contract between Mattel and Universal expired. Finally, names were signed on the dotted line in 2019, when director Greta Gerwig was brought on. Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling were cast as Barbie and Ken in the same year, and after filming was paused due to Covid-19, the film finally left the runway.

As a business owner, it may comfort you to know that although the end product was a smash hit, Barbie was a difficult work in progress for some time. Several actresses were cast and un-cast in the lead role, and the longer the project dragged on, the more time investors had to wait for a payoff.

Ultimately, Barbie is a lesson in patience for entrepreneurs. Your company’s seedling years might be full of opportunities and disappointments in equal measure, but keeping your eye on the long-term prize could help you stay the distance and achieve lasting success.

2. Experience is just as important as a great idea

Unlike Barbie, the idea for a movie about J Robert Oppenheimer didn’t come to director Christopher Nolan until 2021, after he read a book about the physicist’s life and work.

While Nolan quickly snapped into action and began filming as early as 2022, it is important to remember that his decades of industry experience enabled him to achieve this fast turnaround.

To secure funding, cast the appropriate actors, and find filming locations in under a year requires a titan of business to lead the project – and a titan Christopher Nolan certainly is. Having earned his Hollywood stripes through modern classics like The Dark Knight and Inception, several actors and producers all clamoured to work with Nolan on his next project.

In an interview with Empire, Nolan reflects on his career journey that led to making Oppenheimer, which has now been nominated for 13 Academy Awards. He says, “The crazy thing is that it’s the most successful film I’ve ever made. I’ve been doing this for 20 years.”

As an entrepreneur, Nolan’s story could strike a chord with you. A brilliant idea is essential for success, but so is industry experience – and sometimes, your time in the profession is more impressive to investors and other professionals than the bright idea you bring to them.

So, even if your end goal is to create a business that offers a very specific product or service, it might not yet be time to bring this idea to life. Keep your hat in the ring and earn an infallible reputation among your peers, though, and it could be that your long-term goals become a reality in the end.

3. Social proof is important

In the movie business, reviews have the power to make or break a film’s performance at the box office.

What’s more, with sites like Letterboxd offering the everyday viewer a platform to write their own reviews, filmmakers are under increased pressure to ensure their project impresses cinemagoers.

Fortunately, both Barbie and Oppenheimer scored highly throughout the online review circuit, further boosting the astonishing amount of money each film made after its release.

As a business owner, you could feel a similar amount of pressure to uphold a strong online reputation in 2024.

We’ve previously written all about why encouraging online reviews could help your business thrive – but in short, social proof is almost essential to keep your business on the map.

Over the long term, building kudos among your peers, community, and customers could make a huge amount of difference to your company’s future.

4. Building long-term working relationships could lead to greater success

Having played The Scarecrow in Nolan’s Batman trilogy, as well as acting in several of his other films, Oppenheimer leading man Cillian Murphy was eager to work with the director again.

In an interview with the Guardian, Murphy says, “I will always turn up for Chris [Nolan], no matter the size of the part. Chris will call and I will show up.”

Similarly, speaking to director Greta Gerwig in Vogue, Barbie actress Margot Robbie says her first thought on meeting Gerwig was that “’I really, really wanna work with her.’ But it was a couple of years before we actually got to work together.”

In fact, go behind the scenes of any successful movie in cinema history, and you’d find the nucleus of the project: relationships. Whether it’s a short arthouse film or a Hollywood blockbuster, all great projects are founded on trusting creative relationships that usually span years.

For business owners, forming strong relationships with other professionals is essential both for personal growth and commercial success. Putting together a strong team that you can trust to act in your best interests is crucial if you wish your enterprise to go the distance.

Of course, an important part of your personal and corporate growth is money. As such, maintaining a long-term relationship with a trusted financial planner could help you go from strength to strength as you pursue your long-term goals.

Get in touch

Whether your finances are still in the pre-production stage, or already waiting backstage at the Oscars, we’re here to help.

To begin your journey with a financial planner you can trust, email us at clients@iqf.ie, or call 353 71 915 5560.

Please note

This article is for information only. It does not constitute advice.

It describes financial planning services that iQ Financial can offer to you. Financial planning services are not regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland.