Yahoo Movies Barbie hits $1 billion at the global box office
Barbie has become only the second movie of 2023 to hit the $1 billion mark at the global box office.
Greta Gerwig's celebrated new movie achieved the incredible feat in only its third weekend of release. It retained the top spot at the US box office with $53 million for $459.4 million to date and, combined with its overseas haul, it has now crossed the $1 billion mark.
Barbie now ranks as the second-biggest movie of the year, behind The Super Mario Bros Movie which made $1.35 billion at the global box office. There's every chance that Barbie will surpass that tally by the end of its run as well.
Last week, Barbie became the highest-grossing movie of all time by a solo female director. In terms of live-action movies, it's got Captain Marvel (co-directed by Anna Boden) to overtake next. The MCU movie made $1.13 billion in 2019.
There's also a chance that Barbie will become distributor Warner Bros's biggest movie ever, a record that currently belongs to the $1.34 billion result for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, not adjusted for inflation.
At the US box office, Barbie is already Warner Bros's second biggest movie ever, behind only The Dark Knight's $535 million total (again, not adjusted for inflation).
While the movie has performed above anybody's expectations, there's one person who always thought Barbie could become a billion-dollar success: Margot Robbie.
"I think my pitch in the greenlight meeting was the studios have prospered so much when they're brave enough to pair a big idea with a visionary director," she told Collider before the movie's release.
"I gave a series of examples like, 'dinosaurs and [Steven] Spielberg' – pretty much naming anything that's been incredible and made a ton of money for the studios over the years. And I was like, 'And now you've got Barbie and Greta Gerwig'.
"And I think I told them that it'd make a billion dollars, which maybe I was overselling, but we had a movie to make."
Turns out she knew exactly what she was talking about.
Barbie is out now in cinemas.
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