The idea Barbie would ‘storm the gates’ at the Oscars was ‘always a fantasy’ given the overwhelming male make-up of the Academy, Oscar-winning producer David Puttnam has warned.

Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer was this week nominated for 13 Oscars, with Irish-produced Poor Things taking home 11 and Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon getting 10.

Barbie received eight nominations and while that is nothing to be sniffed at, many fans have taken it as something of a snub – especially given the fact director Greta Gerwig and star Margot Robbie failed to get a nomination.

Cillian Murphy in Oppenheimer. Image: FlixPix / Alamy Stock Photo

On Moncrieff this afternoon, legendary film producer and Academy member David Puttnam said it was never going to go any other way, given the make-up of the Academy.

“You know, one of the things you look at when you talk about an election is what the electorate are like,” he said.

“This may surprise you, but the average age of my fellow Academy members is 62, number one, and secondly, 77% of percent of us are male.”

Margot Robbie in Barbie. Image: Warner Brothers

Barbie and Oppenheimer were released on the same day last summer, sparking the ‘Barbenheimer’ phenomenon which saw many viewers watching them back-to-back.

While Barbie won the box office battle, bringing in more than $1bn (€920m), it now looks as if Oppenheimer will have the last laugh at awards season.

Mr Puttnam said the Academy has been trying to reform in recent years – but the make-up remains predominantly male and middle aged to elderly.

“The idea that, given that electorate, Barbie was going to storm the gates was always a fantasy and I don't really understand all the stuff I've read.

“It means that people either don't understand that it's a 62-year-old average age electorate or that it is 77% male.

“It was never going to happen. The fact that Ryan Gosling has been nominated is probably an acute embarrassment to him to be honest.”

David Puttnam talks to Sean Moncrieff in Cork. Image: Ciara Treacy/Newstalk

He said he personally did not enjoy Barbie.

“I was genuinely enthusiastic about going to see it,” he said. “I'd already seen Oppenheimer.”

“I felt a bit let down. Actually, having seen the trailer, I now realise, I had already seen the movie.

“You could run them the trailer 20 times to the same length of the movie and actually, in some respects, that would be more entertaining.”

Mr Puttnam said many of the films he made his name with would not be able to get finance nowadays.

“Looking at my own career - I've been nominated four times, I won once - I don't think Midnight Express or Chariots of Fire or The Killing Fields or even or The Mission, I don't think any of them would actually be financeable today. They were just too risky.

“It's very sad. I mean, it's one of the reasons I retired when I did and I think I made a good call because I could have spent my life in permanent depression.”

Mr Puttnam has lived in Ireland since 1998 and currently resides in Skibbereen in West Cork.