Barbie (2023)
- The original script for Barbie was written over a decade before production finally began in 2023.
- The incredible score for Barbie was composed in just a few weeks after the original composer dropped out.
- Before Margot Robbie was cast, several major A-list stars turned down the lead role because they felt the script was too risky.
Barbie is a 2023 American fantasy comedy film directed by Greta Gerwig, based on the Mattel fashion doll. Margot Robbie stars as Stereotypical Barbie, who lives a perfect existence in the pastel-pink utopia of Barbieland until she begins experiencing existential thoughts about death, flat feet, and cellulite. To fix her malfunction, Barbie travels to the real world accompanied by Ken, played by Ryan Gosling, where she discovers that Barbie's influence on society is far more complicated than she believed β simultaneously inspiring and limiting real women's self-image.
Greta Gerwig and co-writer Noah Baumbach crafted a film that was simultaneously a celebration of the Barbie brand, a feminist critique of it, and an existentialist comedy about the nature of identity and purpose. The production design by Sarah Greenwood, which built a full-scale Barbieland entirely from practical sets in a bright, deliberate plastic aesthetic, was one of the most impressive and visually distinctive achievements of the year. Ryan Gosling's performance as a Ken experiencing a masculinity crisis β simultaneously hilarious and unexpectedly poignant β earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, and his performance of the original song "I'm Just Ken" became a cultural phenomenon.
Barbie earned $1.44 billion worldwide, making it the highest-grossing film of 2023 and the highest-grossing film ever directed by a woman. The film's marketing campaign, which turned everything pink for months before release, was itself considered a masterclass in brand promotion.
