Barbie has officially become the year’s biggest box office hit, after the doll’s big-screen earnings overtook the Super Mario Bros Movie’s total.
The Barbie movie, which sees Margot Robbie’s titular toy swap her pink fantasy home for the real world, has now made $1.38bn (£1.1bn) globally.
That has taken it past the $1.36bn taken by the Super Mario Bros Movie.
Barbie has also helped the US summer box office reach the $4bn (£3.2bn) mark for the first time since the pandemic.
Analysts did not expect cinemas to reach that milestone, but the success of Barbenheimer - Barbie and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, which were released on the same day in July - propelled takings past last year’s total of $3.4bn (£2.7bn).
Industry experts also predicted that the Super Mario Bros Movie would be the biggest film of 2023. But Barbie, directed by Greta Gerwig, has proved them wrong on that front too.
The biggest films of 2023 so far
1. Barbie - $1.38bn
2. The Super Mario Bros Movie - $1.36bn
3. Oppenheimer - $853m
4. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 - $846m
5. Fast X - $705m
I’ve watched the video. It’s a great critique of the corporate feminism in the movie. But it fails to back up your claim that Barbie has no cultural introspection.
The movie certainly does a garbage job of addressing the body image issues perpetuated by the brand. And it gives the company way too much cutesy-funness in an attempt to tame down the corporate hate it would receive. But not every feminist movie can cover every feminist topic. If every movie had to be a perfect representation of every feminist issue, we would have 0 feminist movies.
IMO, the biggest theme of the movie is how the patriarchy negatively impacts both men and women. That is feminist, and is strongly culturally introspective. We have very few movies that discuss toxic masculinity and its impact on our culture, Barbie is a good start.
I’m sure it could have done better … but the “Look it’s the Supreme Court” joke in the “real world”, when Barbie saw a Miss Universe billboard, hit pretty hard and got straight to the point I’d say.