Barbie has crossed $1.1 billion at the domestic and international box office. It is Warner Bros’ second-highest-grossing film of all time. It is the highest grossing film directed by a woman (solo). Everyone in the industry has rushed to give Warner Bros credit for Barbie’s success. Everyone rushed to give Greta Gerwig credit for directing and co-writing the script and doing it such a smart way. All of that is well-deserved, but give Margot Robbie her flowers too. She executive produced it through her company, LuckyChap. She pitched the film to Mattel. She hired Greta to write and direct. Margot got Mattel to sign off on Gerwig’s script and Margot fought for Gerwig’s vision the whole time. And while doing all of that behind-the-scenes, Margot played a brilliant version of Barbie and she really was the only actress who could have played that part. Well, no one is in a rush to acknowledge Margot’s role in bringing Barbie to the big screen, but at least Margot is getting PAID.
Margot Robbie is being richly rewarded for her key role in bringing “Barbie” to the big screen. The star and producer behind the summer’s biggest hit stands to make roughly $50 million in salary and box office bonuses, according to three individuals with knowledge of her deal.
“Barbie” director and co-writer Greta Gerwig will also likely receive bonuses because of the film’s outsized success. “Barbie” has earned an astonishing $526.3 million at the domestic box office since it opened a month ago, as well as $657.6 million at the international box office. That comes out to $1.18 billion globally — and that figure should keep climbing given that “Barbie” is still topping box office charts.
In addition to bringing the popular children’s toy to glittering life, Robbie produced the film through her production company, LuckyChap Entertainment, which she founded in 2014 with her now-husband, Tom Ackerley, and friends Josey McNamara and Sophia Kerr. The goal of the company was to tell women’s stories on screen and support women creators behind the scenes. Its slate of projects includes the Oscar-nominated “Promising Young Woman,” the superhero sequel “Birds of Prey” and the Netflix series “Maid.”
She also produced I, Tonya, which got her an Oscar nomination (well-deserved). It would not surprise me at all if she picked up her third and perhaps fourth Oscar nominations next year, for actress and producer. While I do wish Margot was getting more credit for Barbie, I do think that LuckyChap really became a player here – while they were already becoming known for producing good, interesting projects, this is next level. Barbie’s success means that they get their pick of scripts and directors from here on out. Plus the $50 million paycheck for Margot is probably very nice. I wonder if Margot’s contract also had a clause about potential sequels?
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid, Cover Images.
Excellent News!
Good to hear Margot is getting recognition (and pay). Greta did an outstanding role as co-writer and director, but Margot was the force behind the move all the way.
She was @ seaflower. If it hadn’t been for Margo, this movie neve would have been made. I do wish people would celebrate the incredible success of the movie with Robbie’s name as well!! She was the brains of this movie which was a vision for Robbie which she created into this magnificent movie!!!
I can’t wait to see it!! I am going in tomorrow for another booster so I will see it 2 weeks from now.
Go Margot!! Smart lady.
The Hollywood Reporter says they didn’t have a deal for sequels in the initial contracts with Margot, Greta etc (which is unusual and shows a lack of trust that the first movie would make bank) so if they want them for sequels, they have to pay. Good.
Warner bros has been absolutely messy with poc and women for a long time,but lack of trust about Robbie and caution was justified.
Most of her last films were big flops,but she had great support or benevolent neutrality.
She ‘s been given a lot of leniency and Grace by the industry until achieving her great success .
I think you need to separate out her acting from her production company. I, Tonya made $53m on a budget of $11m. Even Promising Young Woman made money (according to normal accounting, not Hollywood accounting). I wouldn’t judge any actor on the films they chose to act in for a salary – where a production company chooses to invest is a very different matter.
@ EBS, thank you!!!
@ebs ,i was talking about her actress career of course. The one she is famous for.😉
4 box office failures between once upon a time (2019) and Barbie (2023)
as the female star.
Even if she has all my support to take Jennifer Lawrence former spot in Hollywood, i know her becoming solid A list was pure fantasy with such c.v.
And she does seem to want that status, otherwise she could have done more indie films, or smaller projets (she has chanel ambassadorship money).
you should separate your personal taste ,ideal about cinema and reality .
her being major movie actress does matter in her clout in her producing projets.
All this stays linked to her box office performances unless you are cate blanchett,or become legit in this field.
You need to explain yourself about Hollywood and normal accounting …
Because i Tonya (2017) is her only commercial success among her 5 films as a producer before barbie,…
promising young woman is a critical one,but didn’t cover its budget X3 ,the criteria used by all u.s cinema serious journalism about profits (promotion campaigns may not be part of the official budget,they DO have to be paid …)
I ‘m all for celebrating women winning in Hollywood, and even more in a me too Backlash Era, but with eyes wide open.
Your personal kind of “normal” accounting made Dwayne Johnson a laughingstock when trying to transform black Adam flop and non existent profits into a success with his own version of box office data.
Margot Robbie s achievement is such a landslide and breaking record enough,we do not have to embellish her filmography,which is available for everyone to check in few clicks.
I Hope her success will push for more Big budget diverse female centric film in mainstream cinema, more equality in salaries to men’s ones.
I will simply quote the relevant THR article: “And in a rare circumstance for a movie based on a major piece of intellectual property, the talent that made the movie a success do not have deals in place for a sequel. That runs counter the thinking behind big franchise plays from Marvel or Star Wars or Transformers, which snap up their talent in options, sometimes onerously so.”
I can think of one and only one reason why WB would have acted in such a way, counter to other “big franchise plays,” and it’s not Margot Robbie’s previous box office as an actor. George Clooney is box office poison and people throw money at him.
And here you go on Hollywood accounting: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/09/how-hollywood-accounting-can-make-a-450-million-movie-unprofitable/245134/
Good for her!
It is really impressive! She gave a strong performance in the film but more impressive is the team she put together, especially in recruiting Greta(and to a lesser extent Noah) and getting the studio to support Greta’s creative vision(very hard to do when studios hate risk and originality).
Congrats to Margot! I hope her production company thrives.
Am going to see the movie soon with my mates.
Can’t wait.
It is so much fun! Wear pink and say Hi Barbie! to the other folks in pink is my advice.
Good for Margot! As much as I really enjoyed the Barbie movie, it does not need a sequel. Leave “perfect” alone.
Good for her! And more power to make more women-centered art
I love this for her. I’d be willing to bet that she doesn’t want more recognition. She’s flying in a sweet spot under the radar where IYKYK. Meanwhile she gets to upgrade her house, ride, face whenever she wants. She’s a true BOSS.
Yes, this. The industry knows what she did – she just has to cruise onto the next project.
Nooooo, no face upgrade for this beautiful woman, please!
I love Margot and happy she’s getting paid but this film was so underwhelming.
Agreed. I thought it was boring and heavy handed.
Too right Megan. My mother in law and I watched it and nearly fell asleep halfway through. I’m sorry but I really did not like it and was disappointed as the cinema is not cheap! And yes yes yes on being heavy handed.
Sorry it didn’t do it for you, My MIL fell asleep during JAWS. So I don’t really think that means anything except your MIL needs more sleep.
The box office speaks for itself. I’m going to see it again.
My husband and I will wait for it to be on a streaming platform, no way we’ll go to a cinema to see it as I don’t think it’s worth the price of fuel plus 2 tickets (we live rurally and nearest cinema showing it is 41 miles away).
Meh, I’ve been fighting the patriarchy for decades. The movie didn’t enlighten me.
@Bee lol. It’s by no means an attack on your taste. It just wasn’t for me but I hope you enjoy it more with every rewatch.
Also, my 60 year old MIL had a nap before she watched it so was quite well rested beforehand 🙂
@Megan – the movie wasn’t meant to enlighten you about patriarchy lol. It’s literally a comedy talking about patriarchy in an amusing and engaging way. It’s not a PBS documentary
I mean, I get that it was for you, but it’s doing really well and I really enjoyed it and saw it twice, so clearly YMMV.
It was definitely simplistic and hit you over the head with the themes, there was NOTHING subtle about it, lol.
I enjoyed it for what it was, a fun nostalgic movie with some more serious (nonsubtle lol) themes, but it is not the greatest movie ever made – which is fine. It doesn’t have to be. It was enjoyable and fun and original and that was enough for me.
Yay and hooray but nobody needs that much money.
Yeah I hated it too and I did nod off at points. And sorry but “Ken” and those dance numbers? Damn.
Completely agree. I really wanted to like Barbie, but man, after all the hype, I left feeling so underwhelmed. Maybe the effects of too much hype and nonstop marketing? I’m not sure…
It’s 2024 and the feminism feels like it’s 20 years too late. I see monologues like America’s character on episodes of NCIS. Its certainly not cutting edge progressive, intersectional feminism. It’s very 101 level feminism.
It was absolutely brilliant. From script, to direction, set design, costume and acting, it was all brilliant.
They absolutely killed it and the marketing campaign was the cherry on top. If it keeps doing well it’s because people are going to see it again.
50Million is certainly a lot of money by any standard but given the success seems…low? Who gets a chunk of the 1B,Warner Brothers? Would love to hear any insight into how all the profits are shared.
Just, no.
No one person needs 50 million dollars.
All that money, that’s money NOT going to crew, to other actors, to writers.
It doesn’t need to go to executives, to principle actors. It’s needs to, has to, start to move to other people.
Giving any ONE person that obscene an amount of money. Giving Tom Cruise what, at least 25 million per movie plus all the bonus?
Come on. How much money do a few people, comparatively, need? Who needs 50 million dollars?!
But for 50 crew, 1 million is life changing.
And take every bit of money from executives. They don’t need any more.
I hope you had the same to say about Robert Downey Jr salary for Marvel or what Nolan gets for every film he directs.
Although I agree with the principle, please let’s not do this only for women, particularly women who are also producers and re-invest that money in other female-led projects like she does, instead of a Leo Di Caprio who spends the same obscene amount of money in yachts and private jets.
Agree!! For decades, women have never been paid equally to men. When I was entering the workforce, it was $0.73 to $1.00 that men made. IIRC, it is now up to $0.83 to $1.00 today.
Women are also less likely to be promoted, attached in the upper echelons of corporations, yet alone Fortune 500’s. Women have been devalued, dismissed and rejected our entire lives and we are STILL not paid equally.
It’s time we celebrate when woman can command the same types of financial success as men.
Good for her and I agree that we need to talk more about how crucial she was to getting this film made.
In bittersweet news, the success of Barbie means that our local independent cinema won’t be showing The Meg 2 that my BFF and I had on our summer watch list. Sorry Jason Statham, next time. To be fair we’re part of the problem as we’ve been to Barbie there twice now and apparently it’s still selling out.
I loved it. I’m not a movie person and I’ve gone twice. I’m going again with a other friend in 2 weeks. This is absolutely unheard of for me. I’ve never seen a movie in the theater twice, let alone three times.
I love, love, love Margot. It would be so easy for her to lean into complacency as another gorgeous blonde starlet in Hollywood, but she ends up elevating everything she’s in. Loved her as Tonya, loved her as Harley Quinn, and she was born to play Barbie.
Contrarian opinion incoming… (Sorry. If you loved the move, I love that for you, but I’m a cynical b*tch).
I didn’t want to see the movie because Margo is in it. She worked with David O. Russel who molested his trans niece and is known to be extremely abusive on sets. She also massively fawned over Brad Pitt in a very public manner after it was known he beat his wife and children.
I never got Greta Gerwig’s appeal, either. Ladybird never looked like my kind of movie, so I didn’t watch it. But Little Women? It just seemed to me like a standard adaption of a book that had been adapted many times before. But then Greta complained about not getting a directors nomination for it? The same year many Black artists were overlooked. Also, she initially got together with her Noah Baumbach when his wife was pregnant/just given birth. Baumbach then went on to make Marriage Story, essentially justifying the affair. So the feminist credentials going into this were not really that high to begin with.
There has also been a lot of discussion about studios taking the wrong message from the success of Barbie. That for studios this proves that they need to exploit more well-known intellectual properties revolving around toys, whereas the general public is saying, no! This proves you need to give creatives more independence!
There’s a really great youtube video by Broey Deschanel which breaks this down. When the new CEO of Mattel came on, he said that he didn’t want the main focus of the company to be toys, but Intellectual Property. He set up a workshop for all the creatives to come and choose which IP they wanted to adapt, and that’s how Greta and Margot came across Barbie. That is why there is a slew of similar adaptions being announced.
Barbie exploited the name recognition of an extremely well-known IP and had a massive marketing budget (some estimates put it at a similar cost to the movie, about 145 million). Something else they did very well was convince people that buying a ticket to Barbie was a form of social protest. See, girls can like pink too and it’s okay! That it was morally good to buy a ticket, because feminism or whatever. This is an EXCELLENT marketing strategy. I don’t particularly care about Taylor Swift one way or another, but she used a similar strategy, either deliberately or coincidentally when she re-recorded all her songs. Buying her new songs, merch, tickets etc. as a form of social protest against a man who was exploiting her.
And this form of “social protest through consumerism” does seem to be targeting women funnily enough. So yeah, not great for us. I suppose you could compare it to the right wingers trying to sell all their shit to the anti-woke brigade, but it’s just way less successful in comparison to Barbie.
So all this means is that yes, the producers have taken exactly the right message away from the success of Barbie. They had a plan to exploit well-known IPs, and it has been HIGHLY successful.
Every word of this. I wanted to like Barbie despite my doubts about Gerwig, but as a few others have noted, it was an underwhelming film. And man, the Jennifer Jason Leigh incident in 2010 — leaving JJL for Greta while JJL was pregnant — is just ick ick ick. I love Leigh; she is so classy that she has never embarrassed Noah or Greta about it, though she has every right to.
I looked up the movies that she has produced and she has been really killing it. If she keeps this up, she can segway into producing all the time if the good meaty roles dry up as she grows older.
Producing is where the real money is and she seems to have a knack for it.
As President john J Kennedy once said ““Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan.”
Margot is getting paid, that’s matters most….
Always good to hear of women taking the reins in the movie business, producing, directing, writing- getting made what they want to get made and having a say about how it’s made. It has been such a sexist business.
All the people cheering for this or any other news about some already mega rich celebrity (insert any marvel bro, TS…) banking big time is clearly tone deaf and ridiculous. Cheer for things that actually matter, this is not your success and none of that money is going to any of you or any good cause. And cheering for a white girl making obscene amounts of money is peak white feminism.