Less than 3 weeks after its theatrical release, the Barbie movie has just reached the billion dollar mark in cinema sales. Greta Gerwig makes history by becoming the first solo director to break this record. The opportunity to take stock of the place of female directors in the industry.
The film Barbie continues to attract spectators from all over the world to cinemas. Not content with being the feminist comedy of the summer that we expected, the marketing campaign around the film was also a resounding success, with the most disproportionate ideas as each other, in all areas. It took less than a month for Greta Gerwig and her blockbuster Barbie to exceed $1 billion at the box office, a first for a solo female director.
Barbie raises over a billion dollars
With Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling in the cast, the blockbuster Barbie, which depicts the famous doll in a dream world and how she will have to get out of it, reached new heights: on Sunday August 6, less than 3 weeks after its release in France and the United States, the film already grossed 1.031 billion dollars, including more than 459 million in the United States. For the moment, this figure makes it the second film at the global box office in 2023, just behind Super Mario Bros. The filmwhich earned him $1.35 billion.
On X (formerly Twitter), the official account of the film did not fail to share the good news, thanking at the same time the fans who went to see Barbie in movie theaters around the world: “Thank you to our amazing Barbies and Kens around the world for making our Barbie dreams come true. We’re thrilled to share that #BarbieTheMovie has reached $1 billion at the global box office. ? »
Greta Gerwig, first solo director to break this record
If the record is already notable in itself (it is for the moment the 45ᵉ film which has the most money in the world, all years combined), it is above all the fact that a solo director has made it which bring in Barbie in history. Greta Gerwig, a young filmmaker with a critically acclaimed filmography, is currently the only woman to have reached $1 billion in sales for a film directed alone. Just behind, in the ranking, we find Patty Jenkins, director of Wonderwoman, (823 million) and Jennifer Yuh Nelson, who made Kung Fu Panda 2 (665.7 million).
Two other directors have reached the billion for a cinematographic work carried out alongside a man this time, according to the American magazine variety : Jennifer Lee with Snow Queen (1.3 billion) and its sequel, Frozen 2 (1.45 billion), and Anna Boden, co-director of the blockbuster Captain Marvel (1.1 billion).
The difficult struggle of female directors in Hollywood
Greta Gerwig’s success with Barbie does not make us forget that in Hollywood, people of the female gender remain largely in the minority behind the camera. According to a study by the University of Southern California from 2020, among the 100 most popular films of 2019, only 10.6% of them were directed by women, which is still the best year of the decade according to the researchers: over the thirteen years analysed, 1 female director for every 20 male directors was identified.
The study also clarified that it was even rarer for a female director to be non-white: among the 1,300 films studied between 2007 and 2019, only 11 of the 57 female directors belonged to a racialized minority. Another observation: the progression of women in their career is often blocked since if they are 34% of directors behind independent films, but only 5% behind the biggest productions at the box office.
Discrimination does not stop there since women directors are also under-represented in the ceremonies which reward artists in the sector. In 2023, the organization Women In Film condemned the Academy of Oscars for not nominating any women in the category of the best directors. ” A Once again, Academy voters have shown they don’t value women’s voices, by excluding us from Best Director nominations.”said the association in a press release relayed by Variety. While the first Academy Awards took place in 1929, only seven women have since been nominated in this category. Three have won it, the latest being Jane Campion in 2021.
This Barbie may be a feminist, but not sure that’s the case with the movie industry.
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