Only 53 films have ever grossed more than $1 billion at the box office. And Greta Gerwig’s Barbie is one of them.
Barbie has been killing it at the box office, and the energy isn’t slowing down. Gerwig has now become the first female filmmaker to cross the billion-dollar barrier — just in time for her 40th birthday.
The film has already shattered box office records thanks to Warner Brothers’ enormous marketing campaign. It not only had the greatest domestic opening weekend for a non-superhero picture or sequel since the epidemic, but it also had the biggest opening weekend for a female-directed film ever. Barbie grossed $356.3 million in its opening weekend, with guests dressed in pink slacks and shirts selling out theatres.
The achievement is enormous: Only 53 films have done so, including Titanic, Avatar, and The Avengers. But Barbie comes at a difficult moment for film, when many films that were supposed to do well at the box office haven’t.
Greta Gerwig, who directed Lady Bird and Little Women, was already one of the world’s wealthiest female directors. But Barbie‘s phenomenal success places her in a new category formerly dominated by the world’s wealthiest filmmakers, including James Cameron, Steven Spielberg, and Christopher Nolan.
