Barbie Box Office Hits $258 Million in First Week, Nearing $500 Million Globally

Barbie keeps bringing “Ken-ergy” to the summer box office. After scoring the largest domestic opening of the year to date — its $155 million surpassed The Super Mario Bros. Movie’s $146 million 3-day opening — Barbie added another $21.2 million to its haul on Thursday to end its first week in domestic theaters with $258.3 million. Worldwide, the Greta Gerwig-directed hit has amassed $452.1 million, meaning the Margot Robbie vehicle will soon join Mario in the billion dollar club. Barbie already won Warner Bros. its best advance ticket sales ever ($49.5 million), and is looking at breaking another record with a projected $70 million second weekend. 

Barbie‘s big box office is without IMAX or other premium large format screens, which have been secured by the other box office behemoth of July: Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. The R-rated, 3-hour epic has hauled in $242 million worldwide since opening opposite Barbie on July 21st, and will continue its explosive run with a projected $30 million second weekend. Together, “Barbenheimer” is eying the best second weekend presales ever. (Barbie and Oppenheimer already made history: last weekend was the first time two movies opened to $80 million domestically.)

At $452 million, Barbie‘s global box office is behind The Super Mario Bros. Movie ($1.3 billion), Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 ($843 million), Fast X ($720 million), China’s Full River Red ($673 million), Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse ($677 million), The Wandering Earth 2 ($604 million), The Little Mermaid ($555 million) and China’s Lost in the Stars ($506 million).

Both Barbie and Oppenheimer will stay atop the box office this weekend despite Disney’s Haunted Mansion haunting its way into theaters Thursday. That film — the second theatrical attempt at the iconic Disney park ride after 2003’s  Eddie Murphy vehicle The Haunted Mansion, which also received a chilly reception from critics — is projected to scare up $25 million – $30 million over the July 28th weekend. 

“I think my pitch in the green-light meeting was the studios haveprospered so much when they’re brave enough to pair a big idea with avisionary director,” star and producer Robbie said in a recent interview.”And then I gave a series of examples like, ‘dinosaurs and [Steven]Spielberg [with Jurassic Park]’ that and that, that and that – pretty much naming anythingthat’s been incredible and made a ton of money for the studios over theyears. And I was like, ‘And now you’ve got Barbie and Greta Gerwig.’ AndI think I told them that it’d make a billion dollars, which maybe I wasoverselling, but we had a movie to make, okay?!”

Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling lead a starry cast that includes America Ferrera (End of Watch, the How to Train Your Dragon films), Will Ferrell (the Anchorman films, Talladega Nights), Jamie Demetriou (Cruella), and Connor Swindells (Sex Education). Appearing as Barbie and Kens are Kate McKinnon (Bombshell) as Gymnast Barbie; Issa Rae (Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse) as President Barbie; Dua Lipa (Argylle) as Mermaid Barbie; Alexandra Shipp (the X-Men films) as Writer Barbie; Emma Mackey (Sex Education) as Physicist Barbie; Hari Nef (Transparent) as Doctor Barbie; Ana Cruz Kayne (Little Women) as Judge Barbie; Ritu Arya (The Umbrella Academy) as Journalist Barbie; Nicola Coughlan (Bridgerton) as Diplomat Barbie; and Sharon Rooney (Dumbo) as Lawyer Barbie. Helen Mirren (Shazam! Fury of the Gods, Fast X) is the narrator.