BARBIE and UNTITLED Indiana Jones both debut on The Quorum. Which is in better shape?

This week two high-profile summer 2023 films have been added to The Quorum. BARBIE and the UNTITLED INDIANA JONES movie are now within a year of release, so it’s time for us to start tracking them. Just a reminder that non-tentpoles are added at six months out.

Both have had their fair share of media coverage despite being a year away from release. As for INDIANA, not only were there several stories about Harrison Ford turning 80 this week, but Chris Pratt came out to refute the rumors that he was taking on the legendary “Indiana Jones” role from Ford. 

As for BARBIE, we all love set photos that whet our appetite, but the sheer volume of images has begun to feel like too much of a good thing. At a certain point, the ubiquity of the material shifts from a tease to overkill. This could play out one of two ways for  BARBIE. Either anticipation will continue to grow until release, or audiences may begin to think they’ve seen too much of the film, that the mystery is gone. 

Perhaps then, it’s not surprising that BARBIE arrived on The Quorum with higher awareness than INDIANA. Compared to the initial tracking numbers for the other summer 2023 tentpoles, at 37%, BARBIE lands in the middle, above THE FLASH but below FAST X. 

INDIANA arrives at the low end with an awareness of 30%. It trails all the summer 2023 films except TRANSFORMERS: RISE OF THE BEASTS. 

It’s a very different story when we look at interest. Here we see that the two films swap positions. INDIANA debuts with an enormous interest score of 6.3. That’s second only to SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE. At the opposite end, BARBIE lands with a worrisome 4.7, easily the lowest of the group. 

So, what is the better position? Would you rather have lower awareness and high interest like INDIANA or high awareness and low interest like BARBIE? Clearly, INDIANA is better off. It’s much easier to grow awareness than interest. And with a year to go, there is plenty of time for people to learn about the film. 

In the case of BARBIE, the high awareness shows that the images and publicity from the studio have been effective in getting people to know about the film. But, unfortunately, it doesn’t appear to be converting to interest. At least not yet.