There’s big money in plastic life. Margot Robbie, “Barbie” lead actress and producer of the history-making film, is set to make a reported $50 million in salary and box-office bonuses combined, as Variety first reported.
Warner Bros. declined to comment when reached by IndieWire.
Robbie produced “Barbie” through her LuckyChap Entertainment production company. The film was directed by Greta Gerwig, who co-wrote the script with Noah Baumbach. Gerwig is expected to also receive bonuses due to the film’s unprecedented success.
“Barbie” has thus far earned $526.3 million at the domestic box office, plus $657.6 million at the international box office. The film has grossed $1.18 billion globally, making it the highest-grossing film from a female director in the history of Hollywood. “Barbie” is also the second highest-grossing Warner Bros. release behind “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2.”
Both Robbie and co-star Ryan Gosling each earned a reported $12.5 million salary to star in the film. Robbie pitched “Barbie” to Warner Bros. as a possible billion-dollar film. “I think my pitch in the green-light meeting was the studios have prospered so much when they’re brave enough to pair a big idea with a visionary director,” Robbie told Collider, listing “dinosaurs and [Steven] Spielberg” of “Jurassic Park” as the most bankable duo prior to “Barbie.”
“And I was like, ‘And now you’ve got Barbie and Greta Gerwig,’” Robbie added. “And I think I told them that it’d make a billion dollars, which maybe I was overselling, but we had a movie to make, OK?!”
Writer-director Gerwig told IndieWire after “Barbie” that the film “is the thing that I can hang my hat on in a way that doesn’t make me feel like I’m going to spin out into outer space.”
Gerwig spoke to the legacy of female filmmakers as a whole, telling IndieWire’s Kate Erbland, “Something that does feel meaningful to me in that scenario is that — you mentioned Patty Jenkins, and it’s something Margot and I have talked about — there’s no way we would’ve been able to make this movie if [Jenkins] hadn’t made ‘Wonder Woman’ and it was successful. That’s just true. So one thing that I’ve been thinking about, and feeling the joy we felt reflected in audiences, is thinking, ‘Well, if it works, maybe it’s easier for the next person.’”
“Barbie” also helped bring back moviegoers absent since the pandemic: a recent survey from The Quorum found that 11 percent of “Barbie” theatergoers (out of 1,800 Americans) had not been to a movie since before the COVID-19 pandemic; additionally, another 11 percent could not remember the last time they went to the theaters at all.
