Inside Margot Robbie’s Bold “Barbie” Pitch Meetings
Margot Robbie’s pitch was simple and brilliant—big things happen when you pair a visionary director with a big idea. One example she used? Pairing Steven Spielberg with dinosaurs.
This was how she approached selling Barbie to studios, as Collider reveals in a recent interview with Robbie. Robbie’s not just the star of Barbie, she’s also a producer on the film, and in order to pitch the notion of a feature film about the iconic Matell doll to studio executives, she boldly said she believed Barbie could net $1 billion at the worldwide box office. But in order to do that, they needed to secure Greta Gerwig as the writer/director.
“I think my pitch in the green-light meeting was [that] the studios have prospered so much when they’re brave enough to pair a big idea with a visionary director,” Robbie told Collider. “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.’ And 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?”
Whether or not Robbie was slightly (or majorly) overselling Barbie, there’s no denying that everything that she, Gerwig, the rest of the cast and crew, and the Barbie marketing team have done has put the film in the best possible position to succeed. The rave reviews. The ingenious promotion. The rare, wonderful rise of the Barbenheimers, the film lovers uniting behind their desire to see both Barbie and the film’s chief competition this weekend, Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. All of this has resulted in Barbie tracking to become a blockbuster for Warner Bros., with a major opening weekend haul. It turns out Robbie might have the formula exactly right—visionary director + big idea = box office gold. (Of course, it’s never this simple, but it’s a great place to start.)
Once Gerwig was on board, her vision for Barbie, based on a script she co-wrote with Noah Baumbach, was precisely the kind of visionary approach Robbie wanted all along. The cast Gerwig assembled alongside Robbie, which includes Ryan Gosling as Ken, only strengthened Robbie’s contention that Barbie could really work.
Now, Barbie has finally arrived, and Robbie’s bold prediction may very well become a reality. See the film for yourself in theaters when it opens on July 21.
For more on Barbie, check out these stories:
“Barbie” Review Round-Up: Stellar Performances in a Soulful, Bananas, & Ambitious Summer Splash
Believe in Barbenheimer: “Barbie” & “Oppenheimer” Aren’t in Competition, They’re in Concert
The Brilliant “Barbie” Marketing Team Secretly Created an Actual Barbie DreamHouse
Things Get Real for Margot Robbie’s Iconic Doll in Official “Barbie” Trailer
“Barbie” Trailer Reveals Margot Robbie in Greta Gerwig’s Live-Action Look at Mattel’s Iconic Doll
Featured image: Caption: (L-r) RYAN GOSLING as Ken and MARGOT ROBBIE as Barbie in Warner Bros. Pictures’ “BARBIE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Jaap Buitendijk
