The summer success story that is the Barbie Movie phenomenon keeps getting bigger and better as the Margot Robbie-fronted, Mattel-based blockbuster became the first female-directed film to surpass $1 billion at the box office, CNN reports.
In modern history, not accounting for inflation, only 53 movies have made over $1 billion, with Barbie now becoming the highest-grossing female-directed film of all time, overtaking 2017's Wonder Woman, which was helmed by Patty Jenkins and made a global total of $821.8 million.
However, what's even more remarkable is just how quickly Barbie has soared past the billion dollar mark, having only been in theaters for three weeks.
While Gerwig is now the first solo female director to pass a billion for a movie, the 40-year-old is still behind three features that were co-directed by women. Both Frozen ($1.3 billion) and Frozen 2 ($1.45 billion) were co-directed by Jennifer Lee while Captain Marvel ($1.1 billion) was co-directed by Anna Boden.
Barbie has actually surpassed Captain Marvel's domestic box office takings with $459.4 million compared to Marvel's $426.8 million.
This past weekend brought fresh box office competition for Gerwig's behemoth, which had originally opened in theaters on the same day as Christopher Nolan's nuclear smash Oppenheimer.
Now Barbie is having to contend with Seth Rogen-produced and co-written Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem and Jason Statham's prehistoric shark fighting sequel Meg 2: The Trench.
Meg 2 finished the weekend in second place, nudging ahead of Oppenheimer, but still trailing Robbie, Gosling and co, who took in another $53 million from 4,178 North American locations over the weekend, according to studio estimates on Sunday.
And it's not just box office records that Barbie is breaking, but relationships too.
Many women are saying that they deeply reconsidered their relationships after seeing the film.
Watch below:One person on TikTok - who goes by the handle @charlotteryckeboer - wrote: "Take your boyfriends to the Barbie movie and if they hate it, dump them."
Megan "The Fangirl," Gotham also said on the social media platform: "If you go see it with a guy who says, 'Ken did nothing wrong, patriarchy [is] good,’ then you need to get rid of him," adding, "[Director Greta Gerwig is] trying to save us all, through Barbie!"
Even on Reddit's subforum "Am I The A**hole," one anonymous user revealed that she took the female empowerment message to a whole new level as she ended her relationship with a man after watching the Barbie movie because of his views about women.
"He didn’t talk to me until we got in the car. He then told me that he was really offended by the movie and said that it was the kind of thing I should have watched with my girlfriends and not him." they wrote. "We have been having problems with his weird comments about women...maybe it was a long time coming but this was the straw that broke the camel’s back."
With a few weeks left to go in theaters, it will be interesting to see where Barbie finishes her run when it comes to the highest-grossing movies of all time. The top spot is currently held by Avatar on $2.9 billion, followed by Avengers: Endgame on just shy of $2.8 billion. Avatar sequel The Way of Water rounds out the top three on $2.3 billion.
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