NEW YORK (AP) — Waves of pink-clad moviegoers passed under cardboard palm trees on the frenzied first day of “Barbenheimer.”

After a feverish drumbeat propelled forward by a mushroom cloud of memes, the most anticipated day on the year’s movie calendar finally arrived as “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” — two movie opposites brought together by cross-marketing fate — landed in theaters.

“I think it’s the contrast,” said Lucy Ruiz, 17, as she and a friend made their way into the first showing of “Barbie” on Thursday at the Alamo Drafthouse in Yonkers, New York. “If you want to do both in the same day, it’s like two sides of the same coin.”

For Ruiz, the second half of her “Barbenheimer” would have to wait. “Maybe next week,” she said of seeing “Oppenheimer.”