“Barbie” has answered the billion-dollar question with a resounding “yes.” Barely three weeks into its run, writer-director Greta Gerwig’s blockbuster has raked in an astounding $1.03 billion at the global box office, according to official Warner Bros. estimates. This makes Gerwig the first solo female director with a billion-dollar movie.

    • hitmyspot@aussie.zone
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      1 year ago

      It’s based off existing IP, though, so not as fresh as we would like. This is more likely to lead the studio execs to think they can mine kids toys for content, rather than think writing is important.

      • lusciousgreen@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Apparently Polly Pocket and Uno are going to have their own movies as well. I am not totally sold on Polly, but I am all in for Uno. I hope they put in a draw 25 or really showcase the extreme desperation associated with not finding your card. But yeah, new compelling content please.

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          Lol I mean this in a friendly way. You’re either too sober or too wasted for my stoned ass. I see it opposite, and love both. I’m a simp for all sorts of card games; uno and all their “expansions” turn me on

          But I can see how they can actually movitize Polly pocket (eg like green army men in toy story) There’s a whole Pocket world! I love miniaturized things and Polly pocket was the fucking shit

      • pory@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Which is hilarious because after the long and expensive process of producing them (likely during the strike so the writing and acting will suck), the companies get a delayed box office bomb on their hands when they try to hype up their Hot Wheels “it’s fast and furious for 9 year old boys” movie.

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    1 year ago

    Damn, if you check out some Right Wing videos on YouTube they’ll tell you all about how the movie failed financially and how it was a massive flop.

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      1 year ago

      I put off watching the critical drinkers video on it until I went to go see it myself. Actually enjoyed the movie quite a bit, was able to understand the hyper feminist tones were obviously very intentionally ironic. Then you go watch this guy’s review and its all lost on him.

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        1 year ago

        I thought he was funny when I first saw a couple of his videos like a year or two ago. Probably because the videos were about really bad movies.

        And then I realized if a movie had a female main character in it (gasp!) most of the “review” was going to be him shitting on her using whatever big words he looked up. Doesn’t matter if the movie itself was good or bad. Women bad!

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        1 year ago

        I love the old ass show Sledgehammer for the main character being a chauvinist and condescending ass to women but it’s very satirical and making fun of that whole attitude. And that was in the 80s

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      1 year ago

      Well, that works for their audience because, spoiler, the “did my own research” crowd never goes beyond the blowhard source

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        1 year ago

        They aren’t saying it anymore because they are obviously wrong (as always) but dumbfucks like Ben Shapiro predicted early on it would totally fail.

        “[Barbie is] absolutely going to fall off a cliff [at the box office],” Shapiro said of Barbie’s post-opening weekend prospects. “Repeat business is going to be nonexistent.”

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    I’m honestly not surprised. It’s one of those rare movies that has mass appeal (which guarantees it at least half a billion) and also a surprisingly good story that had critics and audiences raving about it.

    I was only forced to watch it because I didn’t want to wait in the mall that long for Oppenheimer to start while the wife finishes Barbie. I haven’t been more satisfied and entertained by a blind watch since… Burning.

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    1 year ago

    Even though my local movie houses have the fancy reclining reserved seats, in most cases we just wait a month or two to watch any new releases on streaming. My wife wanted to see this, but into the 3rd weekend seats are still sold out - we could not even get a matinee showing. They must have done something right.

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        I made this comment somewhere else earlier… the only time I ever heard about it was from my physical therapist that I saw for a couple weeks

        she was like “you see all those ads and previews for the barbie movie that’s coming out?” “No. I don’t usually see any ads or anything and I haven’t seen a movie preview in… years”

        Also didn’t notice any “organic” posts about it on reddit (where I was at the time) or here (I joined at the start of the blackouts). only since opening weekend did I start seeing posts here about oppen/barbie

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          Don’t wanna pull the “are you living under a rock?”-card but I’ve seen tons of promotional material about it. I read about it when production started he took note because of the director and cast, then nothing for a while but in the months and weeks leading up to the release I saw an increasing amount of ads and press.

          As reported by Variety, the marketing budget allocated to Barbie was a staggering $150 million

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          Also didn’t notice any “organic” posts about it on reddit (where I was at the time) or here (I joined at the start of the blackouts).

          Wow. I’m way better at this “astrotufing” thing than I thought.

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        1 year ago

        Don’t worry about me, I’m doing well. Support the other actors and writers on strike instead, I think they would appreciate it.

    • ludwig@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Here’s a list of the top 30 adjusted for inflation: https://www.gamesradar.com/highest-grossing-movies-inflation/

      With that information, I don’t believe Barbie is in the 50 if you adjust for inflation.

      Unadjusted isn’t entirely useless. It’s interesting to see how a movie compares to more recent ones and it also filters out movies that were released in a time where TVs, home media or streaming didn’t exist or were not as common.

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          1 year ago

          That does not answer the question, relative to WHAT exactly? Precisely?

          Relative to last year? When Avatar 2 and Maverick pulled in over a billy? Relative to 2018 when Black Panther did? Relative to 2008 when The Dark Knight did?

          Exactly which one of these achievements is suggested to be the benchmark by which to desperately downplay the current achievement?

          Inflation adjusted for SOME time period, shouldn’t ALL these movies receive some discount and skepticism? It’s funny how you only hear about how inflation is a big deal when it’s a movie made by a woman for a primarily female audience. It’s almost like there’s some other motivation in this “just asking questions” 🤔

          • ludwig@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            This is how Wikipedia adjusts their numbers:

            InfInflation adjustment is carried out using the Consumer price index for advanced economies published by the International Monetary Fund. The index is uniformly applied to the grosses in the chart published by Guinness World Records in 2014, beginning with the 2014 index. The figures in the above chart take into account inflation that occurred in 2014, and in every available year since then, through 2022.

            Basically they are adjusted so that 10 $ in 1939 is equal to what it’s worth today. Seriously it’s basic economics.

            And no, inflation is mentioned every single time someone somewhere brings up a film from the highest grossing films list. Because Gone with the wind is the highest grossing film ever.

            Just because you didn’t notice those other times doesn’t make this time worse. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_correlation

            At the end of the day, highest grossing is a worthless metric to measure in except that it’s just a bit interesting. Don’t take it too seriously.

            Edit: oh and to be clear, she is still the first solo female director with 1B$. Adjusting for inflation doesn’t change that (except if there is a movie with another solo female director that goes above 1B if adjusted)

            • Chetzemoka@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              No one said highest grossing. They said IT MADE A BILLION DOLLARS, WHICH IT DID

              I know what fucking inflation adjustment is. Of course I know that inflation adjustment is a relevant metric that gets brought up when discussing “did this movie make the most money ever”

              But the report is not “Barbie is the highest grossing film in history.” It’s “Barbie made a billion dollars” which is just…a fact

              • ludwig@lemmy.world
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                I think the commenter was referring to this paragraph.

                According to Dergarabedian, only about 50 films in history, unadjusted for inflation, have hit the billion-dollar mark.

                But if you are only talking about the female director thing, then yeah I agree, that’s nice.

                I still don’t understand any of your other comments though. But let’s leave it at that.

                • Chetzemoka@kbin.social
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                  Christ it’s not that hard to understand. Everytime a woman achieves something in public, a whole bunch of people have to figure out SOME way to say it’s not that impressive.

                  Here, let me help: “No way! That’s cool”

                  AND LEAVE IT AT THAT. For fuck’s sake.

              • Iamdanno@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                “made a billion” as in profited that much?

                Or,

                “Made a billion” as in that much revenue?

      • snooggums@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        ‘Sexism’

        Anytime a woman does something monetarily big in Hollywood people being up inflation. They also do with most records, but always with women.

        • ludwig@lemmy.world
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          Nah, people bring it up every time any of the highest grossing movies are discussed, like Avatar and Avengers Endgame.

          Beating Gone with the wind is very hard. Avatar is surprisingly close, but not close enough.

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          That’s too broad a claim for me to agree.

          In this specific event, adjusting for inflation on older movies might show that there was precedent where a movie directed by a single woman was more successful than this one.

          If that happen, that achievement should also be celebrated. If that didn’t happen, this movie should be even more celebrated.

          Asking for more data isn’t the same thing as attacking a claim.

          Maybe I’m just naive, but I like to assume good intentions.

          If someone actually say something sexist, calling them out is important. But I don’t think assuming sexism first is a good thing either.

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            I also used to be niave, but the decades have taught me that it is almost always sexism (or racism) even if it is subconscious. Now I just assume good intentions if that has no negative consequences.

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          Oh, believe me I know. That’s why I asked them to be specific about what they meant here.

          The secret ingredient is always 🌈✨ misogyny ✨🌈

  • Hotdogman@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Thanks people. You were so concerned with if you could and didn’t stop to think if you should.

    Coming next summer! Barbie 2: Tokyo drift