'Barbie' Mint-in-Box Office: Biggest Opening of '23, Biggest Ever for Female Director

"Barbie," director Greta Gerwig's PG13-rated, Mattel-backed, unapologetically feminist existential epic has one more superlative to add to its collection — blockbuster.

Variety reports "Barbie" shattered opening-weekend expectations to achieve $155M, enough to make it the year's highest-debuting film and the biggest debut ever for a film directed by a woman.

Directed by Gerwig from a script she co-wrote with longtime partner Noah Baumbach, "Barbie" stars Margot Robbie as Stereotypical Barbie and Ryan Gosling as Stereotypical Ken, as they embark upon a kaleidoscopic journey of self-discovery after Barbie suddenly begins fearing death, developing bad breath, and suffering from fallen arches, all signs that her owner in the Real World has... issues.

The film features dozens of familiar faces, giving America Ferrera an instant-classic speech about womanhood, and featuring Simu Liu, Kate McKinnon, Issa Rae, Rhea Pearlman, Will Ferrell, Alexandra Shipp, Hari Nef, Scott Evans, John Cena, Dua Lipa, Ncuti Gatwa, director Emerald Fennell and an edgy voice-over by Helen Mirren, among others.

With a 90% score on Rotten Tomatoes, it is a rare movie on which critics and audiences seem to agree.

In second place, proving that "Barbenheimer" — a trend that's seeing moviegoers taking in the very different films back-to-back — is real, Christopher Nolan's historical thriller "Oppenheimer" also blasted past expectations, taking in $80 million in its opening frame. That was good enough for the Cillian Murphy-led film's performance to be a career-best for Nolan.

Excitement over both films led to the biggest box office weekend since COVID-19 appeared, and the fourth-biggest box office weekend of all time.

Speaking to Variety, Franchise Entertainment Research head David A. Gross said, “This is an unequivocally great weekend for moviegoing. ‘Barbie’ and ‘Oppenheimer’ are complementing each other at the box office, not taking audience from each other.”

The box office Top 5:

(1) "Barbie," $155M

(2) "Oppenheimer," $80M

(3) "Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One," $19.5M

(4) "Sound of Freedom," $18.8M