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“Barbie” began its box office sprint on Thursday with a massive $22.3 million in preview grosses. That’s well above the $17-$21 million preshow grosses posted by “The Batman,” “Top Gun: Maverick,” “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” and “Avatar: The Way of Water.”
The Warner Bros. Discovery release, starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling and directed by Greta Gerwig, posted the biggest Thursday preview figure since “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” nabbed $28 million on its way to a $181 million domestic debut. The $145 million Mattel production is now clearly on a path to soar past $100 million, if not $150 million, in its domestic debut.
Buoyed by strong reviews, top-tier buzz and the kind of saturation-level marketing and tie-in campaign that may remind you of “Bat-Mania” in 1989 in the run-up to Tim Burton’s “Batman,” “Barbie” is positioned to almost certainly nab the biggest opening weekend since, well, “Wakanda Forever” last November.
A straight comparison, in terms of Thursday-to-weekend math, gives “Barbie” a $144 million domestic launch. The aforementioned comparisons give “Barbie” a likely opening weekend of between $130 million and $155 million, with the outlier being “Avatar: The Way of Water” ($133 million from a $17 million launch) pointing toward a $175 million Fri-Sun gross.
Greta Gerwig is almost certain to become just the second solo female director to notch a $100 million-plus debut weekend. Anything over $103.5 million will put “Barbie” over Patty Jenkins’ “Wonder Woman” to hold the title for the biggest opening from a solo female filmmaker.
“Captain Marvel” and “Frozen” had male/female directing duos and “Wonder Woman 1984” and “Black Widow” both almost certainly would have topped $100 million in their opening weekend had they opened under non-COVID circumstances in the summer of 2020, and Nia DaCosta’s “The Marvels” could be another such champion when it debuts on Nov. 10.
“Barbie” is a much-needed theatrical win for Warner Bros. Discovery, and frankly their busting out with a movie like this is more important for their long-term health than whatever happens with the DC Studios movies. At their best, WB’s marketing is the best in the business at turning less-than-conventional big movies into unmitigated smash hits. Think, offhand, “Magic Mike,” “Gravity,” “American Sniper,” “It,” “A Star Is Born,” “Crazy Rich Asians,” “Joker” and “Dune.”
Come what may, the sky is the limit for “Barbie” this weekend, and it’s clear that opening it against “Oppenheimer” helped turn both films into buzzy, meme-worthy cultural events to the benefit of both films.
Now that “Saw X” is opening on the same day as “PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie,” the stage is set on September 29 for the ultimate “Saw Patrol” double feature.
