Barely three weeks into its run, writer-director Greta Gerwig’s blockbuster has raked in an astounding $USD1.03 billion ($AUD 1.57 billion) at the global box office, according to official Warner Bros. estimates.
This makes Gerwig the first solo female director with a billion-dollar movie.
As one half of the viral “Barbenheimer” phenomenon, it isn’t shocking “Barbie” has performed well.
And, standing on her own two feet, the doll’s incredible success is not unexpected at all.
“I’ve been on this recreation for 30 years and the Barbie and Barbenheimer phenomenon is as unprecedented because it was unpredictable,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore.
According to Dergarabedian, only about 50 films in history, unadjusted for inflation, have hit the billion-dollar mark.
He added the movie’s marketing campaign was the first hint “Barbie” would be a box office smash.
“The advertising and marketing marketing campaign for ‘Barbie’ set into movement a sequence of occasions that led to the phrase ‘Barbenheimer’ being added to the favored lexicon by advantage of its shared launch date with ‘Oppenheimer,’ and that is after we all knew one thing very particular and distinctive was going to create a a lot greater than anticipated end result for the movie not just for the opening weekend, however for its world run in theaters.”
In an interview with Collider last month, Margot Robbie — who produced the movie in addition to playing the titular character — shared a premonition she had at a greenlight meeting with studios.
“I feel I advised them they’d make a billion {dollars} which, possibly I used to be overselling, however we had a film to make!” she said.
“Barbie” was distributed by Warner Bros., which is owned by CNN’s parent company Warner Bros. Discovery.
Its global success was driven by box office sales in some of the world’s largest movie markets, including the United Kingdom, Mexico and Australia.
The movie has been the No. 1 release in these markets every weekend since its release, according to tracking site Box Office Mojo.
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‘Barbie’ also performed well in China, the second-largest market in the world and one that has becoming increasingly insular over the past few years.
According to experts, franchise films like “Transformers”, “Fast and Furious”, and Marvel’s superhero movies tend to perform well with Chinese audiences.
While “Barbie” is similar to “Transformers” in that it’s based on an existing toy, it’s “not an IP that generations of Chinese have grown up with, so that you lack the intergenerational enchantment {that a} movie like ‘Barbie’ has within the United States,” said Michael Berry, director of UCLA’s Center for Chinese Studies.
But Berry, who researches Chinese cinema and pop culture, says Barbie is still iconic around the world, giving the movie a solid springboard for international acclaim.
“Children in a whole lot of nations… have grown up with the dolls, her imagery… (however) the movie exploits that name-recognition in a really savvy approach by taking part in into each the Barbie lovers and Barbie haters,” he said.
“The movie can be capable of deftly stroll a tightrope that appeals to each naïve and wide-eyed eight-year-old dreamers, who method the movie on one stage, and grownup audiences, who’re capable of interpret the movie on a completely totally different stage, stuffed with irony, humor, sexual innuendos, and allegory.”
‘Barbie’ has become everything from a relationship litmus test to a celebration of womanhood for people who may have come for the hot-pink outfits and stayed for the film’s existential questions.
“Driving that discourse is the movie’s embrace of what generations of girls have each liked and hated in regards to the model and what it is typically represented previously,” said BoxOffice Pro chief analyst Shawn Robbins, adding that the movie “has tapped into cultural conversations about gender roles and feminine empowerment that are not certain by worldwide borders.”
Source: www.9news.com.au
