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The production team behind Barbie were on hand at Deadline’s Contender’s London event today to reveal some of the secrets behind the smash hit’s unique journey and what set it on the road to becoming the year’s biggest movie at the box office.
Greta Gerwig’s acclaimed fantasy comedy, starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, has been a cultural phenomenon this year.
Oscar-nominated producer David Heyman told the audience that much of the film’s appeal comes from its originality: “One of the reasons the film has done so well is because it’s original. There’s a real hunger for originality. Greta Gerwig is a singular artist, she pushes the boundaries of what’s possible in the most collaborative way. The film is fun, thematically rich and very moving. It was challenging, of course, but when we made it, there was a spirit of fun that permeated the production”.
He continued: “When we were getting the film made, we thought about comps but there were no comps for this film.”
Heyman was joined on stage by Sarah Greenwood, Production Designer; Jacqueline Durran, Costume Designer; Ivana Primorac, Hair and Makeup Designer; Glen Pratt, Visual Effects Supervisor; and Nina Rice, Production Sound Mixer.
While the team discussed the amount of fun that was had, capturing a movie with the number of impressive set-pieces as Barbie was also a significant challenge.
Primorac revealed that “Barbie Margot had more than 30 costume and hair changes”.
Durran noted that “Hot skatin’ Barbie was one of the hardest looks to pin down. We needed the characters to look amazing on Venice beach and that’s hard due to Venice beach. We went through the history of the roller-blading Mattel characters and we reinvented it.”
Rice noted that in order to capture the sound during the vast musical set pieces, they “sewed the radio mics into wigs and costumes and the actors had an ear piece in playing the dance tracks”.
Greenwood told the audience how her team bought a dream house and “played with it in the office” on the “philosophical and fun journey”.
The movie, in which Robbie’s eponymous character suffers a crisis that leads her to question her world and her existence, has smashed box office records, becoming the top grosser of 2023 with more than $1.4BN.
Barbie is the highest-grossing film by a solo female director, the highest-grossing film ever released by Warner Bros., and the 14th highest-grossing film of all time.
Based on the fashion dolls by Mattel, it is the first live-action Barbie film after CGI films and specials. Supporting cast includes America Ferrera, Kate McKinnon, Issa Rae, Rhea Perlman and Will Ferrell.
The movie’s simultaneous release with Universal’s Oppenherimer led to the Barbenheimer cultural phenomenon, which encouraged audiences to see both films as a double feature.
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