'Barbie' 1.6 Trillion Won Revenue Box Office Fever... Even Beat Nolan

560,000 Underperform in Korea... Audience Temperature Gap Between Korea and the US
Warner Bros. Sets New Box Office Record

Director Greta Gerwig's film 'Barbie' is creating a syndromic-level hit in the United States.

According to the US box office Mojo on the 16th (local time), 'Barbie' maintained the number one spot until the previous day, recording a worldwide revenue of $1,197,990,000 (1.6 trillion KRW). This surpasses Warner Bros.' highest-grossing film, Christopher Nolan's 'The Dark Knight' (2008), which earned $536,000,000 (717.1144 billion KRW).

Director Greta Gerwig
Photo by Yonhap News

Released on July 21 last month, 'Barbie' is being screened in 4,243 theaters across the US, earning $573,900,000 (767.18952 billion KRW) domestically.

Christopher Nolan also could not smile broadly at the momentum of 'Barbie.' His new film 'Oppenheimer' recorded a worldwide revenue of $653,970,000 (873.9 billion KRW) and a US revenue of $270,020,000 (360.82772 billion KRW), which is about half of 'Barbie's' earnings.

US CNN analyzed through market research firms that this is "an achievement reached by only about 50 films in history." They also noted the "fast pace of the box office" and predicted that "the record will not stop."

The highest-grossing film at the US box office currently is 'The Super Mario Bros. Movie,' released in April, which earned $574,000,000 (767.3232 billion KRW). Many local media outlets anticipate that 'Barbie' will break that record and become the highest-grossing US film.

'Barbie' stills [Photo by Warner Bros. Korea]

'Barbie' tells the story of Barbie, who lived in Barbie Land where she could be anything she wanted, discovering a portal crack connected to the real world. To resolve this, Barbie embarks on an unexpected journey with Ken.

The film's cheerful humor combined with satirical feminism has elicited enthusiastic responses, especially from young female audiences.

Directed by Greta Gerwig, who delivered impressive stories with 'Lady Bird' (2018) and 'Little Women' (2020), and starring and producing by Margot Robbie (33), known for her roles in 'The Suicide Squad' (2021) and 'Bombshell' (2020), the collaboration of these two prominent women filmmakers in Hollywood as producer and director drew industry attention for the birth of 'Barbie.'

On the other hand, in South Korea, where the film was released on the 19th of last month, it only attracted a cumulative audience of 565,485 by the 18th.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.