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Barbie‘s history-making run continues.
On Wednesday — its 34th day in release — Greta Gerwig‘s movie passed up runaway blockbuster The Super Mario Bros. Movie at the domestic box office to become the top-grossing title of 2023 after finishing the day with a North American total of $575.4 million.
Super Mario Bros., from Universal and Illumination, closed out its run with $574.3 million domestically, a feat it reached in 140 days.
The contest between the two movies isn’t over entirely, however.
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Super Mario Bros. remains the top earner of the year globally with a worldwide total of $1.36 billion, putting it at No. 15 on the all-time list of biggest earners, not adjusted for inflation.
Barbie, with a current global total of $1.3 billion, is expected to overtake Super Mario no later than the first week of September.
Once it achieves that milestone, Barbie — starring Margot Robbie as the iconic doll — will next set its sights on strutting past Frozen II‘s worldwide war chest of $1.43 billion and becoming the top-grossing movie of all time — whether live-action or animated — from a female director. (In the past several days, Barbie passed up the original Frozen, which earned $1.28 billion worldwide.)
Gerwig is already the highest-grossing female director of a live-action movie at the worldwide box office, as well as the highest-grossing female director of all time at the domestic box office. And, in its first 17 days in release, Barbie became the first live-action film in history that was directed by a woman solo to join the global billion-dollar club.
Box office observers aren’t ruling anything out when it comes to Barbie, which could play in theaters for weeks to come, if not through the end of the year, as exhibitors face a potential disruption to the release calendar because of the ongoing writers and actors strikes.
On Aug. 24, Warners announced that Barbie will play in Imax theaters for the first time during a special one-week limited engagement, beginning Sept. 22. Audiences will also be treated to exclusive post-credit footage selected by Gerwig.
“The worldwide enthusiasm for Barbie has been overwhelming, humbling and deeply moving,” Gerwig said in a statement. “We made Barbie for the big screen, so it’s a thrill to be able to bring it to Imax, the biggest screen of all.”
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