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This Barbie<\/em> is a billionaire! Greta Gerwig<\/strong><\/a>\u2018s doll comedy starring Margot Robbie<\/strong><\/a> has officially earned over $1 billion at the box office.<\/p>\n Barbie<\/em><\/a> pulled in an estimated $53 million domestically in its third weekend, bringing the film\u2019s worldwide box office<\/a> to $1.03 billion, Sunday estimates indicate. Gerwig, 40, is the only solo female director to join the billion-dollar director club with a live action movie. (Captain Marvel<\/em>\u2018s Anna Boden<\/strong>, who co-directed with Ryan Fleck<\/strong>, is the only other woman to helm any of the 53 movies to surpass $1 billion).<\/p>\n The movie stars Robbie, 33, as a Barbie<\/a> who starts experiencing strange thoughts about death and flat feet. She determines that the only way to combat her existential dread is to leave Barbieland to find whoever is playing with her in the real world.<\/p>\n Robbie\u2019s LuckyChap Entertainment produced the Mattel film, and the star has made it clear that she made big promises about the box office to the WB before landing the film.<\/p>\n \u201cI think my pitch in the green-light meeting was the studios have prospered so much when they\u2019re brave enough to pair a big idea with a visionary director,\u201d she recalled in a pre-SAG-AFTRA strike interview with Collider<\/a> in July. \u201cAnd then I gave a series of examples like, \u2018dinosaurs and [Steven<\/strong>] Spielberg<\/strong><\/a>,\u2019 that and that, that and that \u2013 pretty much naming anything that\u2019s been incredible and made a ton of money for the studios over the years. And I was like, \u2018And now you\u2019ve got Barbie and Greta Gerwig.’\u201d<\/p>\n She concluded, \u201cI think I told them that it\u2019d make a billion dollars<\/a>, which maybe I was overselling, but we had a movie to make.\u201d<\/p>\n Barbie<\/em> will be among the highest-grossing movies of the year. It\u2019s only second to The Super Mario Bros. Movie<\/em><\/a>, which hit theaters in April and pulled in $1.35 billion at the worldwide box office.<\/p>\n Gerwig initially wasn\u2019t set to direct Barbie<\/em>, which also stars Ryan Gosling<\/strong><\/a>, America Ferrera<\/strong><\/a> and Will Ferrell<\/strong><\/a>. Gerwig and partner Noah Baumbach<\/strong><\/a> co-wrote the script and the Little Women<\/em> filmmaker realized she had to be the one helming the film.<\/p>\n \u201cI was originally meant to just write it with Noah, and then we finished the script and that was the thing that made me want to direct it. It felt so clear to me: If they didn\u2019t want to make that [version], I didn\u2019t need to make it,\u201d Gerwig told the New York Times<\/em> <\/a>last month.<\/p>\n She continued, \u201cMargot, as the producer and star, was really the first person to line up and say, \u2018I want to do it her way.\u2019 And then as we started adding collaborators and gathering more cast, suddenly there was a large number of people who were excited to do something that was this, excuse the pun, out of the box.\u201d<\/p>\n Sign up for Us Weekly’s free, daily newsletter<\/a> and never miss breaking news or exclusive stories about your favorite celebrities, TV shows and more!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n While Barbie has surpassed expectations, so has her opening day competitor Oppenheimer<\/em><\/a>. While the second half of the Barbenheimer phenomenon<\/a> hasn\u2019t quite joined the billion-dollar club, director Christopher Nolan<\/strong><\/a>\u2018s atomic bomb drama surpassed $550 million at the worldwide box office.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\n Ryan Gosling, Margot Robbie, Greta Gerwig, and America Ferrera.<\/span> Eric Charbonneau\/Shutterstock<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n