10 Reasons Barbie Made $1 Billion In Just 3 Weekends (& How Much Will It Make?)

Summary

• Barbie’s success at the box office is attributed to its pre-release hype and marketing, which included collaborations with various brands and early teaser releases.
• The movie received great reviews and word of mouth, which helped attract a wider audience and contributed to its box office success.
• Barbie’s release in the summer as a big-budget, star-studded, and visually vibrant film made it the ultimate summer blockbuster, appealing to viewers of all ages and genders.

Barbie continues its successful box office run by hitting $1 billion in just three weekends, and there are different reasons that have contributed to its massive success in a short time. Among the most anticipated movie releases of 2023 was Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, which took the famous Mattel doll and brought it to life in a story that explored both Barbieland and how a Barbie-led society works and the inequality and struggles women go through in the real, human world.

Barbie follows Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie), who after going through sudden changes like flat feet and questioning her mortality, goes on a journey to the real world accompanied by Stereotypical Ken (Ryan Gosling) to find the girl who plays with her and fix the portal between Barbieland and the real world. Barbie has been praised by critics and it has become a massive box office success, breaking records and earning a place on the list of highest-grossing films of 2023. At the time of writing, Barbie has grossed over $1 billion worldwide, and here are 10 reasons why Barbie has been such a huge success at the box office.

10 Barbie’s Box Office Was Boosted By Pre-Release Hype & Marketing

Barbie‘s biggest strength was its excellent marketing campaign and the hype that was built around the movie way before its release. Mattel made various collaborations and entered several partnerships with a variety of brands in order to promote Barbie, and these collaborations covered a wide range of fields – from clothing and shoes to fast food restaurants and even insurance companies. Official Barbie-themed products could be found everywhere months before the movie’s release, which was key in hyping it up and drawing the audience’s interest and curiosity.

First looks at Barbie were shared at different conventions, and the very first teaser, which parodied Stanley Kubrick’s classic 2001: A Space Odyssey, gave viewers a good idea of the type of humor to expect from Barbie. Barbie’s marketing campaign was consistent from beginning to end, and character posters, along with full trailers, better sold the movie to its target audience and to viewers outside of it, who were drawn to it because of its humor, design, and its then-intriguing premise.

9 Barbie Is One Of 2023’s Best Movies With Great Reviews & Word Of Mouth

Reviews can be a key element in a movie’s box office success, as they might influence the audience’s decision to watch a movie or let it pass. Barbie benefited from its great reviews, which are well-deserved due to its engaging story, charming and relatable characters, incredible production design, and more. Critics have praised Barbie’s humor, criticism of the brand’s portrayal of women, lack of diversity, and design failures (with the addition of some controversial and obscure Barbies and Kens), along with how the movie addressed gender inequality. Great reviews also made way for word of mouth of Barbie’s quality and its biggest strengths, catching the attention of a wider audience.

8 Barbie Is The Ultimate Summer Blockbuster Release

Summer is the best time of the year for studios to release their biggest projects, earning the title of “summer blockbusters”, and Barbie is the ultimate example of this. Barbie is not only a big-budget production, but its comedic tone with dramatic moments, vibrant visual style, and its star-studded cast make it the perfect release for summer. Given its marketability and how it appeals to viewers of different ages, Barbie had to be released in the summer, making it an unmissable event.

7 Barbie Is An Easy Movie To Rewatch

Even with all the themes and topics it addresses, Barbie is a movie that is very easy to rewatch. This is not only thanks to its story, performances, and sense of humor, but to all the details throughout the movie, both in terms of visual design and narrative. There’s a lot to unpack in Barbie thanks to its exploration of themes like gender inequality, the patriarchy, the matriarchy, the struggles of growing up and being an adult, capitalism, etc. which ensure that viewers will find something new and interesting in every rewatch. Barbie also has a bunch of Easter eggs that require multiple views to catch them all, and what better than rewatching it while it’s still on the big screen.

6 Barbie Speaks To A Wide Audience

On the surface, Barbie seemed like a movie targeted at women and women only, mostly young women, but one of the biggest surprises the movie had up its sleeve was how it’s actually aimed at a much wider audience. Surely, Barbie’s main target audience is women, of all ages and lifestyles, but it’s also aimed at a male audience thanks to Stereotypical Ken and the other Kens, through which Barbie addressed some of its most serious topics. Even with all its fantasy elements, Barbie is a very relatable movie, especially through the character of Gloria (America Ferrara), who represents common fears and struggles in adult women, while Stereotypical Barbie showed vulnerability that no one would have expected from a character that is considered “perfect” in every possible way.

5 Barbenheimer Was Key In Hyping Both Movies

An unexpected phenomenon that helped further hype Barbie is what’s now known as “Barbenheimer”. The announcement of Warner Bros.’ Barbie and Universal’s Oppenheimer being released on the same day in many countries prompted a comedic response on social media, with countless memes and even merchandise celebrating the release of Barbenheimer. The contrast between Barbie and Oppenheimer is what caught the attention of the audience, and the Barbenheimer phenomenon evolved to the point where the cast members of both movies (and actors not related to any of them) encouraged viewers to do a double feature. What started as a joke ended up benefiting both movies, which exceeded their respective box office expectations.

4 Barbie Is An Original Movie (Despite Being Based On A Doll)

One of the biggest complaints about the film industry in recent years is that nothing is original anymore. The industry has been dominated by big franchises, reboots, and requels from different genres, as well as adaptations of other media. Because of this, Barbie arrived as something fresh and new, despite being based on the most famous doll there has ever been. Surely, the Barbie doll had already gotten a couple of movies, although all animated and none of them a big release, but Barbie is unlike any of them as it’s not completely set in a fantasy world and it covers very real topics and issues, making it an original movie.

3 Barbie Is Greta Gerwig’s First Big-Budget Project

Greta Gerwig has earned the praise and respect of critics, filmmakers, and viewers, but before Barbie, she mostly made smaller-scale movies. Her first movie, Nights and Weekends, is a small-budget mumblecore film co-directed with Joe Swanberg, and her big break arrived in 2017 with the coming-of-age drama Lady Bird. Gerwig’s biggest project before Barbie was Little Women, and while it was a critical and commercial success, it was a smaller-scale project compared to Barbie. Barbie is Gerwig’s first blockbuster and big-budget film, which caught the attention of those already familiar with her work who were interested in seeing how her signature style would translate into a much bigger movie.

2 Barbie Has A Star-Studded Cast

Of course, one of Barbie’s biggest strengths is its star-studded cast. With Barbieland full of different variations of Barbies and Kens, Gerwig and company brought diversity and gave each variant a chance to shine, even if just briefly. A star-studded cast will always help build interest and curiosity around a movie, and Barbie surely seized this by casting names like Hari Nef, Alexandra Shipp, Dua Lipa, Simu Liu, Scott Evans, Ncuti Gatwa, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Rhea Perlman, and more.

1 Barbie Used Nostalgia To Its Favor

A big reason why Barbie was able to appeal to a wide audience and allow viewers of different ages to relate to it is its nostalgia factor. Barbie and Ken are dolls that have accompanied generations of children, and the addition of not-so-popular Barbies and Kens like Midge, Barbie Video Girl, and Earring Magic Ken (just to name some) brought back memories to a number of viewers. However, Barbie smartly avoided falling into the nostalgia trap and didn’t rely much on it, instead using it for fun references and Easter eggs, but it was strong enough to make people talk about it after watching the movie.

How Much More Will Barbie Make At The Box Office?

By crossing the $1 billion mark worldwide, Barbie has become the first film by a solo female director to do so, and it has joined the one billion club of 2023 along with The Super Mario Bros. Movie. Barbie will now be entering its fourth weekend, meaning that there are big chances that its box office numbers will drop, but if it continues to be pushed in international markets, Barbie could come close to The Super Mario Bros. Movie’s $1.357 billion. Barbie has already earned its spot as one of the highest-grossing movies of 2023, and its numbers can still grow for as long as it plays in theaters.