At long last, Greta Gerwig‘s “Barbie” and Christopher Nolan‘s “Oppenheimer” hit theaters for the summer movie event of 2023: “Barbenheimer.” And advance predictions say both films will do very well at the box office this weekend. Critics love both movies, too, which matters a lot more. But during a summer where many blockbusters have been commercial misfires, two winners in one weekend is a big deal for an industry bordering on chaos.
But will “Barbie” make a billion dollars, like star and producer Margot Robbie initially plugged to Warner Bros.? If it does, the film must be the biggest hit of 2023 after its theatrical run. Deadline reports (via a new interview with Collider) that Robbie promised big box office numbers if the studio matched her “Barbie” idea with an intrepid director. “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,” the actress said about Gerwig. But Robbie’s grand plans for the film had her thinking of other big-time blockbusters that were cash cows, like Steven Spielberg‘s 1993 classic “Jurassic Park.”
“And then I gave a series of examples like, ‘dinosaurs and [Steven] Spielberg,’ that and that, that and that — pretty much naming anything that’s been incredible and made a ton of money for the studios over the years,” 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, okay?!”
As pitches go, Robbie’s isn’t too outlandish. But a billion dollars at the box office? Only “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” has hit that mark worldwide this year. It’s not that “Barbie” can’t do it, but more of a matter if people decide to hit the theater to see it in what’s been an off summer for blockbusters so far. But “Barbie” has a lot going for it beyond just Robbie leading the cast and Gerwig behind the camera. Ryan Gosling also stars as Ken, and there’s a whole gaggle of other Barbies and Kens in the movie’s ultra-impressive ensemble cast.
As for Robbie, she didn’t care if she starred in as Barbie in “Barbie” or not: in her pitch, she just wanted her idea to get greenlit. “I didn’t want whoever our director was going to be – Greta being the first choice, but if she had said no – I didn’t want our director to feel pressured to put me in the role,” Robbie said about her pitch. “So I was just really upfront about like, ‘I won’t be offended in the slightest. We could go to anyone. Whatever story you want to tell and whoever you want that to be, I support that. I’ve got skin in the game as a producer, I don’t have skin in the game as an actor, so be free with that choice.’'”
But Gerwig wasn’t hearing that from Robbie. “And she [Gerwig] was like, ‘Shut up, I want to write this for you,'” the actress continued. “And I was like, ‘You might feel pressured to say that, but …’ and we did that dance for a while. And then eventually I just accepted that she did want me to play the role, and then she wrote it. She wrote me in and she wrote Ryan in, and it was our names printed in the script from the get-go: ‘Barbie – Margot, Ken – Ryan Gosling.’”
Now the moment has come: will “Barbie” indeed rake in a billion dollars at the box office like Robbie predicted? Projections for its opening weekend have “Barbie” around $165 million, which would put the film over its purported $145 million budget. Let that sink in: $145 million to make a live-action “Barbie” movie. Even Greta Gerwig can’t believe it. “There’s a point in the movie where the Kens are riding invisible horses from their beach battle to the Mojo Dojo Casa Houses,” Gerwig told The New York Times in a new interview, “— a Mojo Dojo Casa House is like a Barbie Dreamhouse, but for Kens — “and I think to myself, every time: ‘Why did they let us do this?’”
Because “Barbie” may very well reach the echelons of “Jurassic Park,” Ms. Gerwig. “Barbie” hits theaters everywhere tomorrow.