Break out the “Margot Robbie was right” shirts.
The Oscar-nominated actress pitched Barbie to studio executives as a movie that could make a billion dollars at the box office. “I think my pitch in the green-light meeting was the studios have prospered so much when they’re brave enough to pair a big idea with a visionary director,” she told Collider, including examples like “dinosaurs and Steven Spielberg.”
Robbie continued, “And I was like, ‘And now you’ve got Barbie and Greta Gerwig.’ And I think I told them that it’d make a billion dollars, which maybe I was overselling, but we had a movie to make, OK?!”
A billion dollars was too low of an estimate.
Barbie is already up to $700 million at the worldwide box office; by Sunday, “some think it could even cross $750 million, making it the third-biggest title of 2023 so far after only its second weekend,” according to the Hollywood Reporter. The only 2023 films that have made more are The Super Mario Bros. Movie ($1.34 billion) and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 ($844.8 million).
Only 52 movies have grossed over $1 billion at the worldwide box office. Let’s say Barbie — which will clear a billion in the next few weeks — gets in the range of Mario‘s total gross. That would make it one of the 20 biggest movies ever. It could have been in the top five, if only the “fart opera” had been left in.
(Via the Hollywood Reporter)