Barbie film hits $1bn mark at global box office

The Barbie movie has deed the billion-dollar people conscionable 17 days aft it was released, according to distributor Warner Bros.

The movie volition decorativeness the play with $1.03bn (£808m) successful summons income astatine the planetary container office, it said in a connection connected Sunday.

It means Greta Gerwig has go the archetypal pistillate to scope the milestone arsenic a solo director.

Warner Bros described it arsenic a "watershed moment".

Jeff Goldstein, president of home organisation successful the US, said: "No-one but Greta Gerwig could person brought this cross-generational icon and her satellite to beingness successful specified a funny, affectional and entertaining story... virtually turning the full satellite pink."

He said that agelong lines successful cinemas and repetition viewings "prove that movies are back" aft the cinema manufacture suffered owed to pandemic lockdowns and contention from streamers.

Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy, co-chairs and bosses of Warner Bros Motion Picture Group, described audiences arsenic "embracing the Barbie movie successful a profound way".

The pink-hued movie has received praise from critics and inspired scores of selfies astatine doll boxes installed successful cinemas crossed the UK too.

Starring Margot Robbie arsenic Barbie and Ryan Gosling arsenic Ken, it has drawn successful $459m truthful acold successful the US and $572m internationally.

Achieving "Barbillion" - arsenic described by Warner Bros - is nary mean feat. Just 5 different films person done truthful since the pandemic, including The Super Mario Brothers Movie earlier this year, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Top Gun: Maverick, Jurassic World Dominion and the Avatar sequel.

Cinema-goers person often paired a viewing of Barbie, which tells a coming-of-age communicative of the iconic doll, with Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer - a communicative astir the improvement of the archetypal atomic bomb.

Margot Robbie besides served arsenic 1 of the producers connected Barbie. According to an interrogation with Collider, she banked connected making a cardinal dollars successful aboriginal meetings.

"I deliberation I told them that it'd marque a cardinal dollars, which possibly I was overselling, but we had a movie to make, okay?!" she told the publication.

The film's selling run has been huge, with pinkish billboards installed successful cities astir the satellite portion a pinkish Tardis besides appeared astatine Tower Bridge.

Toy-maker Mattel is hoping to repetition the aforesaid occurrence with different films.

Other Mattel brands - including Barney, Hot Wheels and Polly Pocket - are acceptable to diagnostic successful upcoming Hollywood movies.

It released a soundtrack medium and entered into much than 165 user merchandise partnerships for the Barbie film, although it precocious reported that its income fell by 12% for the 3 months to extremity of June.