It’s been out for more than three weeks, and yet Greta Gerwig’s Barbie is still painting the movie industry pink after smashing several fresh box office records.
The new movie, starring Margot Robbie as the iconic doll, has become the highest-grossing movie at the US box office by a female director, solo or otherwise - much to the chagrin of Ben Shapiro.
The previous record was held by Jennifer Lee, the director of Frozen 2, after the Disney film banked $477.4m at US box offices.
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But this Barbie just keeps breaking records. The movie hit $492.6m on Thursday 10 August, and it now stands at $526.3m in the US.
Barbie also became the highest-grossing live-action movie by a female director after the fourth weekend in cinemas.
The pink sensation overtook Captain Marvel, which earned $1.13bn globally in 2019 and was co-directed by Anna Boden. Gerwig's movie has now taken $1.18bn to date.
The records keep tumbling despite the fact that Robbie was not even first choice for the role, which she revealed last week.
The actor, who was also a producer on the movie, recently told Vogue that both her and director Greta Gerwig initially wanted Gal Gadot for the role but scheduling conflicts got in the way.
“Gal Gadot is Barbie energy. Gal Gadot is so impossibly beautiful, but you don’t hate her for being that beautiful because she’s so genuinely sincere, and she’s so enthusiastically kind, that it’s almost dorky. It’s like right before being a dork,” she said.
Barbie was also banned in Kuwait recently, and now faces calls for a ban in Lebanon amid complaints in the Arab nations about the film’s social values.
There are currently no plans in the works for a sequel.
“At this moment it’s all I’ve got. I feel like that at the end of every movie, like I’ll never have another idea and everything I’ve ever wanted to do, I did," Gerwig said in a recent interview.
“I wouldn't want to squash anybody else’s dream, but for me, at this moment, I’m at totally zero."
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