Box office record: ‘Barbie’ passes ‘The Super Mario Bros. Movie’ to become 2023’s biggest hit
It was going to happen eventually, but now the box office record is official. Greta Gerwig‘s “Barbie,” starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, has become the highest-grossing movie of the 2023 calendar year, at least domestically.
It did so by slowly creeping up on the $574.3 million grossed by Universal’s animated “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” earlier in the year, passing that mark on Wednesday to hit $575.4 million. Still, this means 2023 has now seen two movies enter the Top 15 for all-time highest grossing movies domestically, with “Barbie” still playing well in theaters and vying to get to the $608.6 million made by Disney-Pixar’s “Incredibles 2” back in 2018.
Globally, “Super Mario Bros.” is still victorious with $1.36 billion worldwide, but “Barbie” is already at $1.28 billion, so it only needs another $72 million globally to become the year’s biggest global blockbuster. Being that “Barbie” hasn’t shown any signs of slowing down, that amount could be hit sometime in September.
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Even before that, “Barbie” only needs another $27 million globally to pass “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2” and become Warner Bros.’ highest-grossing worldwide hit, which could happen much sooner. Last week, “Barbie” passed Christopher Nolan‘s “The Dark Knight” to become the studio’s biggest domestic hit ever.
And right now, we’re just talking about the summer into the fall. Even with dozens and dozens of other movies to be released, “Barbie” is very likely to be in the Oscar conversation, going by the Gold Derby odds, which would mean that it could be getting another bump toward the end of the year and into next year. The kind of money that “Barbie” has made might make you think that every single person alive has watched it, but there are probably still a few hold-outs who might see Gerwig’s movie get a Best Picture nomination, and then they will try to go out and buy a ticket.
Of course, by then, “Barbie” will likely be available via VOD and probably streaming on Max, but there’s nothing to say that Warner Bros. won’t do whatever it can, whenever it can, to get “Barbie” back in theaters for the diehards that want to break out their pink outfits for another visit to Barbie Land with their friends.
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In fact, Warner Bros. just announced that “Barbie” will finally get an IMAX release for one week only on September 22, but it will include additional footage and moments as it finally gets onto the screens that have been dominated by Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” since they both opened a month back.
Check back on Sunday to see how much more “Barbie” makes, but then next week is the long Labor Day weekend, officially the last weekend of summer, so that could also give “Barbie” the bump it needs to catch up to “Harry Potter” and “The Super Mario Bros. Movie.”
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