The Barbie movie directed by Greta Gerwig was easily the number one movie of the year as it earned over $1.4 billion dollars taking the title of the highest-grossing film of 2023. The movie took over the summer of 2023 as it swept the internet and attracted many viewers. The movie’s marketing and merchandise easily helped it’s rise to fame along with songs from many popular artists, award winning actors, and a moving story line.
Barbie (Margot Robbie) lives a perfect life in Barbie Land where the Barbies run the world. In her utopia every Barbie has a successful job ranging from astronauts to Supreme Court Judges. However, life gets “worse” when she is faced by a crisis, forcing her to travel to the human world to fix her problem. Barbie and Ken travel, leaving their perfect world to arrive in the real world where they are hit with the reality of life for humans. As Barbie navigates the Human world and returns home she learns how life isn’t perfect and teaches viewers many valuable lessons. The movie sucessfully preaches lessons of femmism, leadership, communication and more through an engaging story line.
The soundtrack of the movie has received plenty of attention as it stars many popular artists. Including Lizzo, Nicki Minaj, Ice Spice, Tame Impala, Dua Lipa, Billie Elish, and many more. The budget for the Album was reported to cost 100 million USD and had a clever marketing campaign. The playlist was released on July 21 of 2023 along with the movie and drew in many listeners. As songs like it Dance The Night by Dua Lipa, What Was I Made for by Billie Eilish, and Barbie Dreams by Nicki Minaj began to trend due to the popluar artists singing them. By focusing on popularizing songs in the movie, creators where able to allure many viewers that orginally may of not wanted to watch the movie. Catchy songs attracted listeners helped to bring more fame to the movie.
The Movie starred many popular actors and actresses including Ryan Gosling, Morgot Robbie, Will Ferrell, and more. Margot Robbie, the real life Barbie, is also an executive producer and she leads the musical comedy as “Stereotypical Barbie”. Along with her was her co-actor Ryan Gosling who performed the role of Ken. The screenwriters decided to play into the marketing joke where “He’s just Ken” implemented it into the story line, including the award winning song I Just Ken.
The never ending press tour and endless products from the movie has helped the movie rise to fame. The movie announced on social media accounts that they will be traveling to major cities for the press tour including, New York, Los Angeles, London, Berlin, Seoul, and more. Although the tour was cut short due to the actor strike, the planning behind Margot Robbie’s carpet looks attracted more than enough attention. She recreated past iconic barbie looks attracting more media attention to current and past barbie.
In major cities over this past summer, it was unusual to cross a street without seeing a Barbie ad. Barbie has collaborated with more than 75 different influences and worked with more than 150 designers. The movie is also branded as a mother-daughter movie attracting families to the theater. Gerwig says that at its heart it will always be a mother-daughter film. The recognizable Barbie pink and clever marketing campaigns have attracted thousands of viewers making the film the movie of the year.
