"Barbie" Approaches $1 Billion at Global Box Office

As she heads into the third weekend of release, Warner Bros’ "Barbie" has hit two new milestones, crossing both $500M at the international box office and the nine-century mark worldwide. 

The Greta Gerwig-directed movie added $16.8M from 69 offshore markets on Thursday, bringing the overseas total to $509.7M. 

Globally, the doll is standing tall with $916.1M as she looks to rollerblade past $1B this weekend. The Top 5 markets to date for the Margot Robbie-starrer are the UK ($77.3M), Mexico ($45.8M), Brazil ($36.5M), Australia ($34.3M), and China ($29.5M) through Thursday.

Speaking of China, Warner Bros’ "Meg 2: The Trench" has taken its first bites at the global box office, grossing $11.5M through Thursday in 57 markets. 

The giant shark also swam into China Friday, opening with an estimated RMB 146.1M ($20.4M). That figure is not included in the numbers through Thursday and while there is not yet a Maoyan audience score in the market, the ticketing platform is predicting an RMB 1B ($140M) finish across the full run.

The first Meg installment was a surprise summer hit when it opened in August 2018. Jason Statham returns with massive Chinese action star Wu Jing joining the proceedings. Ben Wheatley directs the story of a research team taking on countless creatures whose deep-water habitat is being invaded. Jon Hoeber & Erich Hoeber and Dean Georgari are screenwriters.

Thursday for the pic was worth $8.1M. Latin American markets opened strong with the movie ranking No. 1 for the region, topping the opening days of "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" by 134%, "Pacific Rim: Uprising" by 94%, and "Godzilla: King of the Monsters" by 51% as well as coming in roughly on par with "The Meg".

The top plays to date are France with $2M in the first two days, followed by Mexico with $1.4M on Thursday at No. 1 and above "Kong: Skull Island" (+4%), "Godzilla: King of the Monsters" (+8%), "Transformers: Rise of the Beasts" (+29%), "Rampage" (+30%) and nearly triple the opening day of "Indiana Jones 5".  

Germany at $1.1M was double the first day of the original and is 6% above Indy 5, 42% over "Rise of the Beasts" and 32% over the first day of "Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One". 

Italy is tracking ahead of most comps including the original, "Indy 5", and "M:I7". Indonesia is next up with $537K while the Netherlands debuted on Thursday with a strong 3D share of 54%. 

Opening day results are 19% above "The Meg", 27% ahead of "King of the Monsters", 49% over "Mission 7" and 52% ahead of "Jurassic World Dominion". A further 18 markets release Friday, including Spain, the UK, and China. 

Meanwhile, Christopher Nolan’s epic "Oppenheimer" is on its way across the $500M mark globally with $478.8M through Thursday. Yesterday’s offshore gross was $10.6M, lifting the international box office cume to $278.9M.

In the UK, the through-Thursday total on the Universal movie is $43.1M, in line with "Dunkirk". Germany is next best with a running cume of $23M, performing 15% above "The Dark Knight Rises" and surpassing the lifetime of "The Dark Knight", having already overtaken the lifetimes of "Dunkirk", "Interstellar", and "Tenet".

France has a market cume to date of $21M, which is 11% above "The Dark Knight Rises" and has surpassed the full run of "The Dark Knight". Australia is now at $15.3M, 58% above "Dunkirk", having surpassed the lifetimes of "Interstellar" and "Tenet. India has a running total of $14.7M, having already surpassed the lifetimes of all Nolan comps. The title is the 2nd biggest Hollywood movie of the year behind Fast X in that market.

Other notable cumes include Mexico at $12.6M; Spain with $12.1M and performing above "The Dark Knight Rises" (+35%), having passed the lifetimes of "Dunkirk", "Interstellar", and "Tenet"; Saudi Arabia at $9.3M which is bigger than the lifetime of all Nolan comps; and Netherlands where "Oppenheimer" has become Nolan’s biggest movie ever, with $9.2M so far.