Margot Robbie took her duties as the producer of the Barbie movie very seriously, even going as far as telling studios that the flick could make a billion dollars.
In order to make the movie happen, the actress, 33, had to pitch the film during meetings with studio executives and assure them of its potential commercial success.
The Australian star, who leads the cast of the film as the eponymous Barbie doll alongside her boyfriend Ken, played by Ryan Gosling, 42, insisted that in order for the movie to succeed they needed director Greta Gerwig, 39, on board.
‘I think my pitch in the green-light meeting was the studios have prospered so much when they’re brave enough to pair a big idea with a visionary director,’ she said in an interview with Collider.
‘I think I told them that it’d make a billion dollars, which maybe I was overselling, but we had a movie to make, okay?’ she added.
Billion dollar movie? Margot Robbie, 33, told studio executives that her upcoming Barbie film – which she also produced – could make a billion dollars during pitch meetings; Pictured July 13
Pitching: ‘I think I told them that it’d make a billion dollars, which maybe I was overselling, but we had a movie to make, okay?’ she explained in an interview with Collider
Robbie also compared Barbie to Steven Spielberg’s iconic 1993 dinosaur flick Jurassic Park, which brought in $1.046 billion in the worldwide box office.
‘And then I gave a series of examples like, “dinosaurs and [Steven] Spielberg’ – pretty much naming anything that’s been incredible and made a ton of money for the studios over the years. And I was like, ‘”And now you’ve got Barbie and Greta Gerwig.”‘
Though it remains to be seen whether Barbie will join the billion dollar club alongside classics like Jurassic Park, Avatar, Star Wars, and Harry Potter, the film is certainly gearing up to be a win for Warner Bros. and is anticipated to surpass $100 million at the weekend box office.
Elsewhere in the interview, her co-star Ryan Gosling praised director Greta for being ‘brilliant’ but not ‘pretentious.’
‘Greta, she’s just such a brilliant person and such an inclusive person. She’s brilliant but incapable of being pretentious.’
‘I think what I admire so much about her work is that she doesn’t allow herself to create a divide between drama and comedy, and she encourages everyone around her to do the same. So you end up mining places that are in the in-between and it feels very specific to her, but also something that you can relate to because it’s more like life.’
Barbie has certainly struck a high note with critics, who called the upcoming film ‘dazzling’ in early reviews.
‘This is a truly original work – one of the smartest, funniest, sweetest, most insightful and just plain flat-out entertaining movies of the year,’ Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times gushed.
Iconic: Margot also compared Barbie to Steven Spielberg’s iconic 1993 dinosaur flick Jurassic Park, which brought in $ 1.046 billion in the worldwide box office; Still from Jurassic Park
The right direction: Robbie, who leads the cast as Barbie alongside boyfriend Ken (Ryan Gosling, 42) also said that for the movie to succeed they needed director Greta Gerwig, 39
Visionary: ‘Studios have prospered so much when they’re brave enough to pair a big idea with a visionary director,’ she said; Gosling, Gerwig, and Robbie pictured on June 25 in Los Angeles
Predictions: Though it remains to be seen whether Barbie will join the billion dollar club alongside other classics, the film is anticipated to surpass $100 million at weekend box office
Competition: Barbie will see stiff competition from Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer — with both movies being released this Friday, July 21 — which critics have hailed as a ‘total knockout’
Chandler Levack of Globe and Mail called the film ‘both a master’s thesis on feminism and an Austin Powers-esque romp.’
Critics also praised director Gerwig for achieving ‘a pleasing balance between the silly and the serious.’
IMDB synopsis of the movie reads: ‘A doll living in ‘Barbieland’ is expelled for not being perfect enough and sets off on an adventure in the real world. A Live-action feature film based on the popular line of Barbie toys.’
Barbie will hit the theaters on July 21 and will see stiff competition from Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer — set to be released on the same day — which critics have hailed as a ‘total knockout’ and ‘spectacular achievement’ following its premiere in Paris.
Oppenheimer features an all-star cast and is led by Cillian Murphy, who plays the theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer., also known as the father of the Atomic bomb.
