With Barbenheimer weekend all wrapped up, it seems the prophecy has come true; indeed, not only did Greta Gerwig‘s laugh-out-loud feminist fantasy feature out-perform its more gritty opponent by quite a fair amount, but it’s also comfortably overtaken most all other high-performing summer blockbusters, and has since taken the record for the highest-grossing weekend for a film by a female director. Indeed, Barbie reigns supreme.
It never could have been anything less, of course; giving Gerwig the keys to such an iconic property and letting her run rampant with the production design, existential strokes, and inch-perfect humor was always going to be a surefire recipe for success, and we have the filmmaker’s delectable palette of inspirations to thank in part for that.
One of those inspirations was the one and only Sylvester Stallone, who Ken develops quite the obsession for after that fateful brush with the patriarchy. Indeed, Gerwig didn’t just stick her hand in a hat full of manly icons and roll with the results; she knew exactly which love letters she was baking into Barbie‘s DNA, and the Rocky icon was no mistake.
And we hope Stallone gets the opportunity to indulge in a Barbie screening, because he could be our last hope in getting this colorful world expanded even further. In a recent interview with Uproxx, Gerwig declared that if Barbie 2 ever reared its head, she’d be all too happy to offer Stallone a seat in the director’s chair.
“I mean, he’s welcome to it. It would be an honor. It would be such an honor.”
Indeed, if you thought Barbie and Oppenheimer releasing on the same day was the definition of meme-worthy dissonance, try entertaining the possibility of Stallone helming the sequel to this extremely pink summer blockbuster and get back to us.
Barbie is now playing in theaters.