Will Hollywood Learn These 5 Lessons From ‘Barbie’?

Over the previous week and a half, Greta Gerwig’s comedy “Barbie” handed the billion-dollar mark on the international field workplace, and it received’t be lengthy earlier than it overtakes “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” to grow to be 2023’s highest-grossing film worldwide — a title it’s prone to maintain onto. That’s a staggering achievement in so some ways: No film directed by a lady has ever topped the yearly field workplace, and it’s been effectively over 20 years since a live-action movie with none vital motion components turned the most important film of the yr. (That’d be the Jim Carrey car “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” which dominated 2000.)

But can the runaway success of “Barbie” reshape Hollywood? I’m too cynical to assume studio executives will study all the fitting classes from it. Instead, they’ll most likely simply greenlight extra motion pictures about toys. Still, “Barbie” proved at the very least 5 issues to be true, if determination makers are prepared to assume outdoors the pink field.

1. A summer time film will be neatly written

We rely on summer time motion pictures to ship spectacle, however what number of additionally include a witty, considerate script? Too usually, big-budget blockbusters are rushed into manufacturing earlier than the screenplay is completed, and even whereas capturing, they’re in a continuing state of flux, with new writers clambering aboard to sew every part into some form of viable patchwork quilt.

“Barbie,” against this, feels completely thought via as an alternative of frantically rewritten. Despite the outsize scale of the movie, it nonetheless shares a particular comedian sensibility and offhand intellectualism with “Frances Ha” and “Mistress America,” the 2 motion pictures beforehand written by Gerwig and her associate, Noah Baumbach, and there are precise concepts at play right here which have given “Barbie” a conversational shelf life far longer than most summer time movies. Though “Barbie” proves {that a} large film will be each enjoyable and considerate, that’s prone to occur solely when a studio hires sensible writers, resists sanding down their sensibilities, and provides them sufficient time and area to really make the story sing.

2. Make extra female-led occasion movies

Though motion pictures as diversified as “Bridesmaids,” “Crazy Rich Asians” and “Where the Crawdads Sing” have all grow to be breakout hits in recent times, they’re usually handled as aberrations: Peruse a typical theatrical calendar and also you’ll discover little hint of these movies’ affect. Studio executives routinely take feminine audiences without any consideration, handing their largest budgets to motion pictures made by and starring males as a result of the standard knowledge is that although ladies will go see these titles, male moviegoers are reluctant to look at a female-driven story.

“Barbie” has now blown a gap in that argument. It isn’t simply that males had no alternative however to see “Barbie,” lest they be omitted of the cultural dialog — the movie additionally demonstrated how ladies will present up in record-breaking numbers to look at one thing that actually speaks to them (usually bringing buddies and going a second or third time, too). Female-led blockbusters don’t all must star a superheroine: They will be comedies, romances or dramas based mostly on best-selling books, so long as they’re introduced as main occasions.

3. Don’t depend on past-their-prime franchises

“Barbie” will finish this summer time outdrawing each main sequel. That’s partly as a result of these franchises are so lengthy within the tooth: We’re on the seventh “Mission: Impossible” film, the tenth “Fast and Furious” and the fifth “Indiana Jones.” Younger audiences haven’t any sense of possession over these older sequence, and even longtime followers could also be experiencing diminishing returns. If any lasting lesson will be drawn from the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon that despatched each “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” hovering previous their preliminary projections, it’s that audiences are keen for large motion pictures that really feel genuinely new. Films that stoke their curiosity will be much more potent than outdated reliables.

4. An incredible soundtrack is efficient advertising

Though studios will discover each attainable technique to market a film — from billboards to Instagram advertisements to Happy Meals at McDonald’s — there are few tie-ins as potent as a very killer soundtrack. We used to rely on our large summer time motion pictures to ship radio hits, however loaded soundtrack albums have grow to be few and much between nowadays, regardless of movies like “Black Panther” and “The Greatest Showman” amply demonstrating the increase a movie can get from an album that individuals can’t cease taking part in.

It’s good, then, that the “Barbie” soundtrack is crammed with bops, like Dua Lipa’s “Dance the Night” and “Barbie World” from Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice. Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?” is destined to make the shortlist for the original-song Oscar, and even Ryan Gosling’s plaintive energy ballad “I’m Just Ken” debuted on Billboard’s Hot 100. In an period when TikTok has grow to be a music-industry hitmaker and virality on that platform can rival any paid advertising push, a enjoyable pop soundtrack just like the one “Barbie” boasts is value its weight in rose gold.

5. Stop saving the great things for the sequel

With “Barbie” on a path to grow to be the yr’s highest-grossing film worldwide, Warner Bros. will inevitably attempt to conjure a franchise from it. Yet a lot of what makes “Barbie” really feel recent is that it tells a whole story and doesn’t spend time establishing spinoffs or sequels. In reality, it ends in a spot that might be arduous to roll again: with its lead on the definitive finish of her character arc. Gerwig and her stars aren’t signed for “Barbie” sequels, and after I spoke to Gerwig after her blockbuster opening weekend, she mentioned she’d put each thought she had into this film with out the considered doing extra: “At this moment, it’s all I’ve got.”

A “Barbie” sequel will surely earn a living, however there’s no means it might seize the lightning-in-a-bottle second that makes this film really feel like such a collector’s merchandise. Would Warner Bros. and Mattel have the heart to protect the worth of “Barbie” by letting it stand by itself? As a top-tier legacy title undiluted by shoddy sequels, it might proceed to generate untold quantities of income within the years to return. So though it’s unlikely that studio heads will ever select frequent sense over cynical money grabs, the concept of “Barbie” as a one-and-done deserves consideration: After all, a toy solely lasts without end if you recognize when to place it away.