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 think this movie did well because like me, many people are also sick and tired of being so sick and tired of the world all the time, and so, a movie with a sincere message for jaded adults about accepting their own mortality and refinding their humanity really resonated. Because it is a message of hope, instead of despair.
In a way, it’s the anti-“Babylon”.
Maybe I’ll explain more one day when I have time, after the strike’s done.
I think the movie did well because IT WAS PLASTERED EVERYFUCKINGWHERE along with Oppenhimer. Literally couldn’t find a corner of the internet not talking about one or the other.
My problem with the movie was the chosen villain. Ken is borderline psychotic, but it wasn’t his fault. He’s just confused and angsty.
“It’s all that damn testosterone. Let women run everything.”
Instead of targeting where all this pain actually comes from - capitalism. Corporate greed. Squeezing the working class to their bones and tossing out the leftovers.
Fix that. Buy more time for the only “based” part of the movie - When Barbie sits on the park bench and gets to just breathe and experience the world. Time to do absolutely nothing but be.
Or. . . Ya know . . . Something something men bad??
That’s the whole point, tho. It’s meant to simply be a social commentary, not to provide a solution or whatsoever.
The antagonist is pretty much as confused and angsty as anyone could be. What sets him apart is that he’s given a chance to do some real damage.
In the end, the best they could do is the slightly improved version of status quo.
But unlike in Babylon, our protagonist didn’t go back the absurd status quo, but instead choose to leave and become human in another world, right?
Just as you have chosen to leave reddit and start anew at Lemmy.
That is true, but I stand corrected.
The slightly improved that I mentioned is meant in the grand scheme of things, whic is the audiences’ perspective. Yes, Barbie and Ken found their true selves, but other than that, not much.
With the same tone, one can say: yes, Lemmy is better than Reddit and we like it here; but outside of our world, nothing changes as most people probably don’t care about Reddit anyway.
Fair. I interpreted it as 2 fantasy worlds battling each other. Neither was “reality”, so any outcome shouldn’t be taken prescriptively.
And I agree - social commentary. I’m pleased just to see the discussion getting going _
Did we watch the same movie? One of my main takeaways, and what I thought was so refreshing compared to other more #Girlboss feminist-coded movies like the Ghostbusters reboot, was that simply “letting women run everything” isn’t the answer. Indeed, it’s that setup in the beginning of the movie that creates that bitter resentment in Ken and causes a lot of the ensuing problems. One of the emotional climaxes of the movie is Barbie realizing that she has been mistreating him and that his pain is valid, even if how he’s chosen to handle that pain was poor. The fundamental message I’d gotten was that a true feminism is not just girlbosses running everything, but rather is one that is inclusive of men and seeks to liberate them as well from toxic gender roles and expectations that harm them as well as women.
No, it’s not really a critique of capitalism, but it’s also not remotely trying to be one, and beyond that, the issues it’s talking about aren’t really fundamentally linked to economics. You can have rampant sexism and toxic gender roles in any and all economic systems.
The movie doesn’t advocate for a matriarchy, it shows how terribly it impacted Ken and led to his “revolution”. It didn’t push “men bad”, it pushed “patriarchy bad, matriarchy bad”. It showed how the patriarchy leads to toxic masculinity and how that negatively impacts both men and women. The film is a flavor of corporate feminism so there’s no chance it was going to criticize capitalism (it would be cooler if it did), but it does a great job of pointing out how the patriarchy has hurt everyone.
Funnily enough many people viewed Ken as the good guy even after the point was made that he is supposed to be a sympathetic villain.
This, exactly this is what the movie should’ve been.
Also I don’t understand the modern way of many movies being made now where the movie isn’t something where you can immerse yourself in the movie without any political agenda being pushed by any side.
I want a movie to be something to Enjoy rather than criticize our world for its problems. Sure some movies can have this message such as documentaries or crime stories and such but today it’s come to the point where more and more genre of movies are becoming like this.
Have you ever watched movies? They all have stuff to say. Otherwise why make em?
Ishtar is a movie. What did it have to say?
Unfamiliar, but the description[0] suggests they have some themes around war in the middle East. I hear that can occasionally get political. Really you should just stick to nice simple books without any subtext at all, like Moby Dick. Just a good read about a man who hates a fish.
[0] “Two untalented nightclub performers get caught in the crossfire when they are booked in the war-torn Middle East. Thanks to rebel Shirra, the duo find themselves in the middle of a revolution.”
From the few minutes of it I could sit through, it struck me as a badly made buddy road trip movie. Actually try to sit through it then tell me what it’s about.
So you’re saying that movies shouldn’t push a message and should instead be purely about enjoyment. Then you bring up an example of a movie that you found to be really shitty and unenjoyable as an example of a movie without a message (but didn’t watch enough of it to be able to say whether it pushes any message). Are there any movies that don’t push a message that you did enjoy?
I feel you. It’s why I can’t watch Disney movies anymore. I’m fully aware how busted our world is. If salting the wound makes more people aware, I’d chalk that up as a win.
But if these “freshly woke” folks are rallying around a banner of “Less men CEOs” instead of “CEOs paid what we’re paid”, imo that’s another loss.
I felt similarly about “Rich Men North of Richmond”. Agree - Pay is shit, life is shit, yup yup. But then the man blames poor people receiving welfare? . . . Bruh . . . So close . . .