Adam Starkey 2–3 minutes
Barbie has become the highest-grossing movie in Warner Bros. history.
Greta Gerwig’s fantasy comedy passed the $1.342billion mark at the global box office on Monday (August 28), beating Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows – Part 2 to become the company’s highest-grossing film ever, not adjusted for inflation.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Barbie is set to become only the 13th movie in history to cross the $600million mark at the US box office later this week. As of Sunday, the film has grossed over $592.8million in the US, and $745.5million in the rest of the world.
The film is also set to beat The Super Mario Bros. Movie ($1.36billion) as the highest-grossing film of 2023 globally in the coming days. When it crosses the milestone, Barbie will become the 15th highest-grossing film of all time.
In a statement to mark the record, Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group co-CEOs, Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy, said: “Reaching this outstanding achievement is a reminder of the power of moviegoers – from countries in every corner of the globe – coming together to further the celebration of an iconic character that has entertained us for so many decades.”
Barbie previously surpassed Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight to become the highest-earning film in Warner Bros. history in the US. Since it was released in July, the film has also become the highest-grossing live-action movie solely directed by a woman.
Starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, Barbie released on the same day as Nolan’s latest film Oppenheimer, creating the “Barbenheimer” phenomena which boosted the success of both films at the box office.
In a four-star review, NME wrote: “What follows is a nuanced, rose-tinted comedy adventure, set to a stonking pop soundtrack featuring Lizzo and Billie Eilish, that somehow lives up to the immense hype. To borrow a pun from Ken’s coolest jacket (out of a long lineup), Barbie is more than ‘kenough’.”
I have plenty of problems with JK Rowlings recent attitudes towards certain disenfranchised groups, but I have a hard time interpreting Harry Potter as “fascist”. The entire premise is diametrically opposed to fascism. The latter four books show how fascists use fearmongering and populist rhetoric in the press to take over democratic institutions.
What I find frustrating about the whole situation is how Rowling seems to have fallen victim to some of the very same patterns her own books warned against.
Is Harry Potter ever critical of the sorting hat, or the anti-muggle prejudice of the magical class? Oh look, there’s a whole discussion about the politics in Harry Potter on Wikipedia: https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Harry_Potter#:~:text=The “pure-blood”%2C,racism in J. K. Rowling’s texts.
My problem with these comparisons is that the text itself reads as critical of them. All this class segregation nonsense (purebloods, mudbloods, etc.) is very explicitly pushed by the antagonists and rejected by the protagonists. The reader is supposed to be disgusted when they learn what it meant when Malfoy called Hermione a “dirty little mudblood”. The whole series is essentially an allegory for how classist and racist sentiments lead to systemic opression, even if the work itself still endorses a now-antiquated status quo.
Really this whole argument is undercut by the fact that the main antagonist faction is a clear allegory for 20th century fascist movements. There is plenty to criticize about Harry Potter (and even more to criticize about its author), but to call the work pro-fascist makes it sound like you never actually read the books and got your information from a list of bullet points without context, and makes it way harder to talk about the problems it does have.
Precisely. Even the Sorting Hat itself is critical of the Sorting Hat, in-universe.
That can only be said of the original work. JKR keeps doubling down. When there are so many other amazing series being neglected, it’s just a shame to see people cling to such a mediocre world and story. It starts to make a person wonder if there’s something underneath the compulsion, like shared beliefs.
Maybe people are just extra nostalgic for books that were a major part of their childhoods? Nothing “new” can really replace that without access to a time machine.
That’s on them, but you have to put the blankie away eventually. Arrested development is never a good look. I admit that I enjoy many of Orson Scott Card’s books. As far as I can tell he never has let his personal beliefs influence his worlds in a negative way, but I would never defend the man or any twisted philosophies he may put in his works.
Orson Scott Card is a great example. I still love Ender’s Game, but I want little to do with his newer work because of his nasty anti-LGBT behavior.
I’m the same with JKR. I want nothing to do with the Fantastic Beasts movies or her newer books. My relationship with her ends with Deathly Hallows.
Robert Heinlein too. Great stories, but sometimes I want to put drunk grandpa in bed before he starts using racial slurs and slapping women on the ass. He toes that line like nobody else.
May I enquire… as to your gender?
I was born with a penis, but the two moments I related to the movie were when Barbie learned about life in the park and Allen (a one of a kind doll) going crazy with the need to escape Ken/Barbie-land.