In the wild world of Hollywood only a select 28 gentlemen managed to land a solo directorial credit of billion-dollar movie. Now their esteemed company has been joined by a new member – Greta Gerwig. The film director who brought Barbie to the big screen.
Barbie has stepped onto the stage with a whopping $1 billion in global ticket sales over a weekend that’ll go down in cinematic history. In doing so, it becomes only the 53rd movie in movie history to have earned more than $1 billion at the global box office. The film is rewriting the script on Hollywood norms and is a fabulous testament to the notion that films for women, by women, and starring women can be a ticket-selling sensation.
Barbie got off to a massive start by raking in $356.2 million its opening weekend. Till date it has grossed about $459 million in US and $572 million internationally since its premiere on July 21. The hot-pink Warner Bros. Pictures movie is now the second biggest release of the year, only behind Nintendo’s The Super Mario Bros.
Though Barbie isn’t the first directorial success of a female filmmaker. Wonder Woman, directed by Patty Jenkins and starring Gal Gadot raked in a cool $823 million worldwide. Captain Marvel, directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, soared to a mind-boggling $1.1 billion. “Twilight” saga, with Catherine Hardwicke at the helm, brought in $408 million.
However before Barbie strutted onto the scene, even Warner Bros. was giving the side-eye to Gerwig’s pink-tinted vision, tossing around doubts about a movie that defied conventional expectations. Though Greta deserves all the credit for her cinematic vision let’s also rejoice the real show-stealers were the women, proving that when you empower women, they’ll shatter glass ceilings and box office records.