barbie the movie
Courtesy: Warner Bros.
It’s a “Barbie” world – or at least North America.
collaboration between director Greta Gerwig, Mattel And warner bros discovery With $575.4 million at the domestic box office on Wednesday, it became the highest-grossing film of the year in North America.
iconic doll passed out of universal “The Super Mario Bros. Movie”, which previously held the title, grossing $574 million.
“Barbie” is also inching closer to crowning the highest-grossing global release of the year. It has grossed $1.3 billion worldwide, which is close to the $1.35 billion earned by “Super Mario” since its release in April. The only two films to cross the $1 billion mark this year.
The success of “Barbie” and “Super Mario” comes at a time when audiences have turned heavily on superhero movies and franchise installments in favor of fresh content.
“Barbie”‘s record-breaking box office performance began in July when it debuted with $162 million, the highest grosser of the year. It achieved the biggest opening for a film directed by a woman and is now the highest-grossing film directed solely by a female director.
Notably, “Barbie” held the top spot at the box office for four consecutive weekends. Ticket sales are expected to pick up for the rest of the summer and autumn.
The film has seen a drop of less than 43% at the weekend box office since its opening, with the last two weekends seeing an average drop of only 36% compared to the previous weekends. Typically, big movies will drop close to 60% each weekend after their initial release.
Few major films will hit theaters in the coming weeks, which should allow “Barbie” to continue selling tickets with limited competition.
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC. NBCUniversal is the distributor of “The Super Mario Bros. Movie”.