Egypt Joins UAE in Delaying ‘Barbie’ Release at VOX Cinemas

The release of Greta Gerwig’s ‘Barbie’ in Egypt’s VOX Cinemas has been delayed to 31 August. The highly anticipated film was originally scheduled to premiere on 19 July, two days ahead of the global release date.

The postponement follows an identical delay in the United Arab Emirates, announced earlier this month. The owner and operator of VOX Cinemas, Majid Al Futtaim Entertainment, is an Emirati company based in Dubai.

The delay has been met with disappointment from fans, who were planning to participate in the global ‘Barbenheimer’ trend by seeing ‘Barbie’ and Christopher Nolan’s biographical thriller ‘Oppenheimer’ back-to-back, as they initially had the same release dates.

Although no official reason was provided for the delay, Movie Web suggests it may have been to give Christopher McQuarrie’s ‘Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning — Part One,’ starring Tom Cruise, more time in IMAX theaters.

Other sources speculate that the movie may have not been “compatible with ‘the ethical values of the UAE,’” in a similar fashion to ‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,’ which was ultimately banned from screening in several countries for failing to pass censorship requirements.

Despite the delay by VOX Cinemas, United Motion Pictures, the distributor of Warner Bros. movies in Egypt, has yet to confirm if the decision will be carried out by all Egyptian cinemas.

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