Barbie’s marketing budget was reportedly bigger than the film itself, but it’s clearly been worth it

If you’ve been within a few meters radius of a movie theater recently, you will no doubt have felt the Kenergy. Seas of pink-clad cinemagoers have been attending sold-old screenings of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, giving the movie the best box office opening of 2023 so far.

This has been a long time coming too, with Barbie's marketing campaign for the movie stretching back months. There were real dreamhouses on Airbnb, Ryan Gosling going method when talking about Ken, and a whole host of impeccable Barbie-themed outfits from lead actor and producer Margot Robbie.

It’s probably not a surprise then that the budget for this marketing campaign reportedly cost more than the film itself. Per Variety, there are estimates it cost more than $150 million to pull this off, which is higher than the $145 million production budget. In short, Warner Bros. invested a lot to turn the world pink and entice people back to the cinema. 

However, despite the huge costs, there’s no denying that the gamble has paid off for the studio. Barbie has been breaking box office records left, right, and center. In its opening weekend alone, it made $155 million in the US and $182 million internationally, scoring not only the best debut of the year but also the best opening for a female director ever.

It’s certainly an impressive achievement too, as Warner Bros. president of global marketing Josh Goldstine shared. "I’ve been doing this for 35 years," he told Variety. "This is one of the most unique experiences I’ve ever had." Let’s go Barbie, indeed.

For more on the pinkest movie of the year, check out our stories on:

• All the Barbie Easter eggs
• Greta Gerwig on her Narnia movies
• Greta Gerwig on a potential Barbie sequel
• Why Barbie and Oppenheimer make the perfect double bill
• Barbenheimer: the day cinema stood still
• Why Ryan Gosling deserves an Oscar nomination for Barbie
• A complete history of the Barbie movies that could have been