Box office: ‘Barbie’ passes Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Dark Knight’ to become highest-grossing blockbuster for Warner Bros.

Edward Douglas
·3 min read
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It was bound to happen after “Barbie” crossed the $500 million mark before this past weekend. As of Tuesday, August 15, it has officially passed Christopher Nolan‘s “The Dark Knight” to become Warner Bros.’ highest-grossing blockbuster ever, at least domestically.

Although Greta Gerwig‘s musical comedy had already passed “The Dark Knight” globally, Nolan’s movie basically made a billion worldwide in 2008, but not much more, since it was a time when there were fewer theaters playing Hollywood movies overseas. “The Dark Knight’s” domestic gross was always going to be tougher to beat, even though “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” did it earlier this year.

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After all, “The Dark Knight” grossed $533.7 million domestically in 2008 at a time when there only had been two movies released by Marvel Studios at the time, “Iron Man” and “The Incredible Hulk.” At that time, only one other movie had made more than $500 million in North America (not accounting for ticket inflation), and that was James Cameron‘s “Titanic,” released in 1997. “Avatar” was still a year and a half away, and there had been no “Avengers” movies yet, nor had Lucasfilm revived George Lucas‘ “Star Wars” franchise with “Star Wars: Episode VII -The Last Jedi.”

Barbie had made $526.3 million as of Sunday, so it was just a matter of time to see if it would cross “Dark Knight’s” domestic gross, making another $4.8 million on Monday to bring its total to $531.2 million. With the $6.1 million made on Tuesday, it has now grossed $537.4 million domestically, and it is officially a new record holder for Warner Bros.

“Barbie” has made almost $1.2 billion worldwide, which means it’s still behind 2011’s “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2,” which grossed $1.3 billion, as the franchise’s highest grosser, as well as Warner Bros.’ biggest worldwide hit to date. It doesn’t seem like another $100 million globally would be that difficult for “Barbie” to achieve, especially if it sticks around for the rest of the year and gets revived and re-released during Oscar season. Although “The Dark Knight” received two gold men — Best Supporting Actor for Heath Ledger and Best Sound Editing — most of its domestic gross was still made in 2008, since it was already available on DVD and Blu-ray by the time it started receiving year-end awards.

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Next up on “Barbie’s” radar is John Favreau‘s 2019 live action version of Disney’s “The Lion King” with its $543.6 million domestic gross. After that, it’s onwards and upwards to take on Universal’s animated “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” which exploded into theaters earlier this year to break into the all-time Top 15  grossers in North America. There’s very little reason why “Barbie” can’t make more than $600 million domestically, as long as it’s able to hold onto its theaters going into September, normally a slower time.

This September, there is a slew of sequels on a weekly basis, but “Barbie” might persevere, being so different from everything else coming out.

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