Margot Robbie may not have been entirely serious when she pitched Barbie as having the potential to comfortably sail past the billion-dollar mark at the box office, but then again, maybe she knew something everybody else didn’t. At the time, at least.
Thanks to an all-out assault of a marketing campaign, its status as the year’s most notable viral sensation, as well as the meme-tastic Barbenheimer battle, the toyetic comedy has utterly obliterated any and all pre-release expectations, and it’s now well on the way to becoming not just the biggest hit of the year, but the highest-grossing Warner Bros. movie in history.
Not only that, but having smashed past the $1 billion mark in its 17th day of release, Barbie has cleared 10 figures faster than the likes of The Fate of the Furious, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and even James Cameron’s Avatar, which is nothing short of mind-blowing. Do you think Greta Gerwig’s phenomenon is done there? Not even close, because even more records have tumbled.
Both domestically and worldwide, Barbie is now the top-earning feature to ever be directed solo by a woman, with Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman holding that distinction for the last six years. However, in a matter of days it’ll pass the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Captain Marvel (co-helmed by Anna Boden) to ensure technicalities won’t be an issue.
Barbie also shattered the 30 year-old record of Home Alone 2: Lost in New York to wind up as the biggest domestic comedy there’s ever been, and it even managed to snatch the worldwide feat away from The Hangover Part II. Are there any more milestones left to be taken? If there is, then there’s a distinct chance they’ll fall in the next few days.