‘Barbie’ joins US$1bil club, breaks another record for female directors

(From left) America Ferrera, director Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie pose for photos during the pink carpet event for the movie "Barbie" in Seoul, South Korea, July 2, 2023. Photo: AP

Greta Gerwig should be feeling closer to fine these days.

In just three weeks in theatres, Barbie is set to sail past US$1bil (RM4.5bil) in global ticket sales, breaking a record for female directors that was previously held by Patty Jenkins, who helmed Wonder Woman.

Barbie, which Gerwig directed and co-wrote, added another US$53mil (RM241.3mil) from 4,178 North American locations this weekend and US$74mil (RM336.9mil) internationally, bringing its global total to US$1.03bil, according to studio estimates on Sunday (Aug 6).

The Margot Robbie-led and produced film has been comfortably seated in first place for three weeks and it’s hardly finished yet. It crossed US$400mil (RM1.8bil) domestic and US$500mil (RM2.2bil) internationally faster than any other movie at the studio, including the Harry Potter films.

"As distribution chiefs, we’re not often rendered speechless by a film’s performance, but Barbillion has blown even our most optimistic predictions out of the water,” said Jeff Goldstein and Andrew Cripps, who oversee domestic and international distribution for the studio, in a joint statement.

In modern box office history, just 53 movies have made over US$1bil, not accounting for inflation, and Barbie is now the biggest to be directed by one woman, supplanting Wonder Woman’s US$821.8mil global total.

Three movies that were co-directed by women are still ahead of Barbie, including Frozen (US$1.3bil) and Frozen 2 (US$1.45bil) both co-directed by Jennifer Lee and Captain Marvel (US$1.1bil), co-directed by Anna Boden.

But, Barbie has passed Captain Marvel in the US with US$459.4mil (versus US$426.8mil), thereby claiming the North American record for live-action movies directed by women.

Warner Bros. co-chairs and CEOs Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy also praised Gerwig in a statement and said the milestone, "is testament to her brilliance and to her commitment to deliver a movie that Barbie fans of every age want to see on the big screen.”

New competition came this weekend in the form of the animated, PG-rated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem and the Jason Statham shark sequel, Meg 2: The Trench, both of which were neck-in-neck with Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, also in its third weekend, for the second-place spot. – AP