'Barbie' is now Warner Bros.' highest-grossing film ever

Director and co-writer Greta Gerwig’s fantasy comedy “Barbie,” based on the iconic Mattel doll, has become the highest-grossing movie domestically in Warner Bros. Pictures’ 100-year history, a distinction previously held by "The Dark Knight" (2008).

Per trade reports Wednesday, the film, rooted in the newly self-aware Barbie’s existential crisis, grossed $6.1 million in the North American box office Tuesday for a running total of about $537.3 million. This raised it from No. 18 on the domestic all-time chart to No. 16, leapfrogging both Disney’s 2016 “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” ($533,539,991) and “The Dark Knight” ($534,987,076). These figures are not adjusted for inflation.

With an approximate international gross of $660.6 million so far, “Barbie,” starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling and released July 21, totals roughly $1.192 billion worldwide. In the process, on Aug. 6, Gerwig became the first female solo director to gross a billion dollars on a film. Disney’s two animated “Frozen” movies, which crossed that mark in 2013 and 2019, respectively, each were co-directed by Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee.

Gerwig already had broken the record for highest-grossing film by a solo woman director, previously held by Patty Jenkins and the $822,854,286 worldwide take for “Wonder Woman” (2017).

“This wholly original film — one that’s not part of any [movie] franchise — broke nearly 20 box-office records on its debut weekend alone,” Warner Bros. Pictures president of domestic distribution Jeff Goldstein said in a statement Monday, after “Barbie” had notched its third weekend as the North American market’s No. 1 film, “and with the low percentage drops we’re seeing from week to week, that momentum is showing no signs of slowing down.”

Gerwig, 40, a three-time Oscar nominee for writing and directing “Lady Bird” (2017) and writing the adapted screenplay for “Little Women” (2019), has no evident social media and has not commented publicly on the new Warner Bros. record.

This year’s highest-grossing film, Universal’s animated “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” has taken in $574,239,660 domestically to claim the No. 14 spot and $1,355,152,660 total worldwide to sit at No. 15.