'Barbie' Surpasses Super Mario as This Year's Top Box Office Hit

$1.38 Billion in Global Sales as of the 3rd

The movie 'Barbie' has surpassed 'The Super Mario Brothers,' which was released earlier this year, to become the highest-grossing film in the North American region this year.

According to Warner Bros. Discovery, the producer of Barbie, which was released on the 21st, the film has earned $1.38 billion (approximately 1.82 trillion won) at the global box office. This exceeds the revenue of The Super Mario Brothers, which opened earlier this year with $1.35 billion. With this, Barbie has set the record for the highest-grossing North American film released this year. Barbie also surpassed Warner Bros.' all-time highest-grossing film, 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2' ($1.342 billion).

The film personifies the Barbie doll created by the American company Mattel and depicts the story of the protagonist Barbie leaving the ideal Barbie Land and entering the real world. Barbie is praised for blending feminist messages with humor, as it observes and satirizes the widespread gender discrimination in various places.

One of the reasons for Barbie's great popularity is the retro craze. It attracted female audiences by stimulating nostalgia for playing with Barbie dolls in childhood. In addition, it incorporated new messages that women could relate to, triggering an emotional connection with the audience. Viewers have even dressed in pink to watch the Barbie movie, and the Barbie craze is regarded as having become a cultural phenomenon.

Brandon Collins, a film critic for Medium Popcorn, said, "Barbie made me look at my own prejudices," and described it as "a very fun and thought-provoking movie."

The 'Barbenheimer (Barbie + Oppenheimer)' effect also contributed to Barbie's box office success. Barbie was released on the same day as 'Oppenheimer,' a film about the history of nuclear bomb development in the United States. Before the release, there were concerns that the overlapping release dates of the two anticipated films would negatively affect their box office performance, but the two films, which are completely different genres, attracted diverse audiences to theaters, resulting in a 'win-win' outcome. Online, the Barbenheimer meme, which combines the titles and posters of the two films, also became popular.

Another factor contributing to Barbie's success is that it was one of the big-budget films actors could promote just before the Screen Actors Guild strike began in mid-July. Bloomberg reported, "Currently, actors are prohibited from attending premieres and participating in media interviews," adding, "This could be a factor that lowers the box office performance of other films this year."

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