Barbie Box Office Revised Up, Best Preview Total of the Year

Barbie has been a fashion icon, a CEO, an astronaut, an Olympic skier — and now, the best-selling doll can add movie star to her resume. Warner Bros. Pictures' live-action Barbie, directed by Greta Gerwig and starring Margot Robbie as "Stereotypical Barbie" and Ryan Gosling as boy-toy Ken, has unboxed $22.3 million in previews. Following reports that Barbie's first-night Thursday gross was a fashionable $20 million, the studio confirmed the $22.3 million number on Friday morning. That's the best preview of the summer and 2023 so far, topping Marvel Studios blockbuster Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 ($17.5 million). Deadline broke the news.

The haul includes $1.1 million from previews on Wednesday, July 19th, across 500 locations. Barbie opened in a total 3,400 theaters by Thursday, its $22.3 million doubling that of "Barbenheimer" double feature counterpart Oppenheimer. Christopher Nolan's star-studded epic about the birth of the atomic bomb opened with $10.5 million in previews from showtimes that began at 5 PM on Thursday.

As the box office chart currently stands, the highest-grossing movies of 2023 so far are The Super Mario Bros. Movie ($1.3 billion), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 ($843 million), Fast X ($717 million), China's Full River Red ($673 million), and the animated Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse ($666 million). The only other films to surpass the half-billion mark this year are China's The Wandering Earth 2 ($604 million), Disney's live-action The Little Mermaid ($555 million), and the Chinese mystery film Lost in the Stars ($506 million).

Barbie's box office numbers come after Robbie predicted the film based on the famed Mattel toy could gross $1 billion at the global box office.

"I think my pitch in the green-light meeting was the studios have prospered so much when they're brave enough to pair a big idea with a visionary director," Robbie told Collider. "And then I gave a series of examples like, 'dinosaurs and [Steven] Spielberg,' that and that, that and that – pretty much naming anything that's been incredible and made a ton of money for the studios over the years. And I was like, 'And now you've got Barbie and Greta Gerwig.' And I think I told them that it'd make a billion dollars, which maybe I was overselling, but we had a movie to make, okay?!"

Robbie continued: "Can you imagine that first meeting [about Jurassic Park]? They're like, 'Dinosaurs? I don't know, I mean, yeah? That might turn out kind of silly.' And then here we are decades later being like, 'That's the greatest movie ever.'"

Robbie and Gosling lead a star-studded 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. 

Barbie is now playing only in theaters.