Filmmaker Greta Gerwig and Warner Bros.’ Barbie has enjoyed another history-making week.
Gerwig now ranks as the highest-grossing female director of all time at the domestic box office after skating past Frozen II, which was helmed by Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck.
From Walt Disney Animation Studios, 2019’s Frozen II grossed $477.4 million in North America, not adjusted for inflation. Barbie finished Tuesday with a domestic tally of $478.1 million before climbing to $492.6 million through Thursday. On Friday, it becomes the 20th title in history to clear $500 million domestically.
That’s not all — Gerwig is also celebrating becoming the highest-grossing female director of a live-action movie at the worldwide box office as Barbie passes up Marvel Studios’ 2019 superhero pic Captain Marvel.
Directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, Captain Marvel grossed $1.13 billion worldwide. Barbie finished Thursday with a worldwide tally of $1.113 billion and is strutting past Captain Marvel on Friday.
Barbie has been shattering the glass ceiling since opening to a staggering $162 million at the North American box office over the July 21-23 weekend, the top domestic opening ever for a female director (solo or otherwise). Domestically, Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman debuted to $103.3 million in 2017 on its way to earning $413 million, while Captain Marvel started off with on its way to grossing $426 million.
After just 17 days in release, Barbie became the first live-action film in history that’s directed by a woman solo to join the global billion-dollar club.
Now that it has passed up Captain Marvel, the question now is whether Barbie can strut past Frozen II‘s worldwide war chest of $1.43 billion to become the top-grossing movie of all time — whether live-action or animated — from a female director. (Lee and Buck’s Frozen earned $1.28 billion globally.)
At this pace, box office observers aren’t ruling anything out when it comes to Barbie, which will easily stay atop the box office chart over the Aug. 11-13 weekend despite being in its fourth outing.
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