Greta Gerwig’s ‘Barbie’ Sets Record for Biggest Opening Weekend Ever for a Female Director

Greta Gerwig at the Barbie World Premiere at the Shrine Auditorium on July 9, 2023 in Los Angeles, CA

On top of being the must-see blockbuster of the summer, Barbie has also made box office history. After scoring $155 million on its opening weekend, Barbie now holds the title for the biggest debut ever for a film directed by a woman. That woman is Greta Gerwig.

The title was previously held by Captain Marvel, co-directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, which earned $153 million upon its debut in 2019. As for movies solely directed by a woman, Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman held the record, after earning $103 million in 2017.

While movie success is usually measured by opening weekend numbers, Barbie‘s reign stretches well over that. The film just had the biggest Monday box office of all time with $26 million, breaking the record held by The Dark Knight since 2008, while also adding another $26 million on Tuesday. Barbie also took the crown for the biggest opening weekend of 2023, surpassing that of The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which made $146 million.

As if that weren't enough, when combining the massive numbers of Barbie and Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer, which was released on the same day, movie theaters saw the largest box office weekend since the pandemic, and the fourth-biggest collective weekend of all time—only behind the opening weekends for Avengers: Endgame, Avengers: Infinity War and Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

A week after its release, Barbie has made over $500 million globally, and its historic numbers could only continue to grow. For its director, the scale to which her movie has touched audiences is bewildering. “I wanted to make something anarchic and wild and funny and cathartic,” Gerwig told The New York Times after the movie's release, “and the idea that it’s actually being received that way, it’s sort of extraordinary.”