Warner Bros Japan publicly criticised US counterparts over ‘inconsiderate’ reactions to art combining playful Barbie imagery with mushroom clouds

Warner Bros global headquarters has apologised after its Japan office publicly complained that the US-based company was engaging with the “Barbenheimer” movement, which promotes a double bill of the apocalyptic Oppenheimer film and the lighthearted Barbie blockbuster.

There is a growing backlash in Japan against the conflation of Greta Gerwig’s playfully marketed movie with Oppenheimer, a biopic of the scientist behind the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.