Box office: ‘Barbie’ crosses $400 million mark in less than 3 weeks

With Greta Gerwig‘s “Barbie” becoming such a runaway hit, it’s no surprise to see that it has already crossed the $400 million mark at the U.S. box office. After passing “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” as the biggest movie of the summer this past week, “Barbie” is now setting its sights on beating “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” to become the biggest movie of the 2023 calendar year.

Starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, the comedy has defied all expectations, beginning with its opening weekend of $162 million, which was the biggest opening for any woman director and actually opened in the range of some of Christopher Nolan‘s “Dark Knight” movies (while Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” became his biggest opening for a non-Batman movie).

As of Thursday, it has grossed $406.4 million going into its third weekend (which it’s projected to win with ease) with enough money built up to end up with $460 million or more by Sunday. That would put it in the top 25 for all-time domestic grosses in between the original “Star Wars” (aka “Episode IV – A New Hope”) and the 1999 prequel, “Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace.”

That also would put it ahead of Nolan’s “The Dark Knight Rises” to become Warner Bros.’ second-highest grossing movie ever after Nolan’s “The Dark Knight.” Oh, the irony.

On Thursday, “Barbie” made $11.8 million, more than double what “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” made in what is likely to be a fierce battle against Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” for second place.

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Since “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” animated movie has already made $574.1 million domestically, making it the top domestic grosser of 2023, “Barbie” still has another $100 million to make after this weekend. The way things are going and with August being lighter in terms of strong new releases, there’s a good chance “Barbie” can make that amount before Labor Day weekend.

Overseas is another story, only because “Super Mario Bros.” has already grossed $1.3 billion worldwide, and that might be a tougher hill to climb, but “Barbie” already has made $823 million globally, so it should be past a billion worldwide quite soon.

Check back on Sunday to see where “Barbie” ends up after its third weekend in theaters.

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