‘Barbie’ Grosses $1 Billion Globally

Barbie (right) and Ken (left) dancing at a party at Barbie's Dream house

Credit: Warner Bros

Barbie Movie

In just two weeks after its release, ‘Barbie’ has reached 1 billion dollars at the global box-office. This makes Greta Gerwig, the first woman to direct a billion dollar picture; passing director, Patty Jenkins who set the record in 2017 bringing in 821.8 million dollars with the film ‘Wonder Woman’.

In its initial release, ‘Barbie’ also broke the record for the highest opening weekend for a female director.

According to Box Office Mojo, ‘Barbie”s global ticket sales currently sit at around 1.03 billion dollars. ‘Barbie’ now marks the fifty-second film in history to join the ‘Billion Dollar Club’.

Margot Robbie, the lead actress and producer of the film, had predicted this milestone from the start. When looking back at the pitch meeting for ‘Barbie’ she said, “I think I told them they’d make a billion dollars which, maybe I was overselling, but we had a movie to make!”

‘Barbie’ has held the number one spot at the box-office every week since its release. Performing well in international markets such as, United Kingdom, Australia, Mexico and China (the second largest market in the world) which has been quite critical of films these past years.

Though the feminist message can be considered “controversial” to some, the success of the film only shows the universal influence of the toy. Personal relationships with ‘Barbie’ have spanned generations becoming an iconic brand. This gives the ‘Barbie’ film a wide net of demographics in audiences.

Cinema researcher Michael Berry said: “The film is also able to deftly walk a tightrope that appeals to both naïve and wide-eyed eight-year-old dreamers, who approach the film on one level, and adult audiences, who are able to interpret the film on an entirely different level, full of irony, humor, sexual innuendos, and allegory.”

‘Barbie”s income has already surpassed films like ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’ and ‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’. With the end of Summer approaching, how far do you think ‘Barbie’ can go?

Published by HOLR Magazine

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