What To Know About Margot Robbie And Ryan Gosling’s Upcoming Movie

Topline

Months of social media hype came to a head on Tuesday when cast posters and a vibrant trailer for director Greta Gerwig’s new film were finally unveiled—sending social media into a frenzy and building hopes that Barbie owner Mattel can reinvigorate a 64-year-old brand.

Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling filming “Barbie.” (Photo by MEGA/GC Images)

GC Images

Key Facts

Starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling as live-action versions of the famous Mattel dolls Barbie and Ken, Barbie opens July 21 and features a large star-studded cast, many of whom play other Barbies and Kens.

The @barbiethemovie Twitter account sent its first tweets Tuesday, unveiling individual cast posters before tweeting the film’s official trailer, which quickly racked up millions of views and more than 170,000 likes.

Of the numerous Barbies, each has a notable job or achievement, according to the cast posters—Issa Rae’s Barbie is the president, Emma Mackey’s Barbie has a Nobel Prize in physics, and Nicola Coughlan’s Barbie is a diplomat—whereas Gosling and Simu Liu are “just Ken” and “another Ken.”

Other members of Barbie’s large ensemble include actors Will Ferrell, Kate McKinnon, Ncuti Gatwa, Michael Cera, America Ferrera and pop singer Dua Lipa.

The Barbie cast poster format instantly became a meme as social media users began editing other celebrities and memes into the poster, typically captioned “This Barbie is…”

Some moments from the trailer, which gave little away about the plot, also went viral, including one scene where Barbie removes her high-heeled shoes, but her feet, just like the doll, remain the same shape (one tweet with 215,000 likes calls it “the most genius shot I’ve ever seen.”).

Barbie Memes

Some viral Barbie-inspired posters features Ashley Tisdale’s character in High School Musical, Mia Goth’s character in Pearl, Jennifer Coolidge’s character in The White Lotus and Harry Styles dressed as a mermaid.

“This Barbie is crazy!!!” one viral tweet with more than 100,000 likes reads, edited to include a woman from a long-viral meme with a bag of chips on her head which was originally captioned “She’s so crazzzzzzzy! Love her!!”

One poster edit features Succession character Kendall Roy, captioned: “He’s just Ken.”

Tangent

The Barbie doll brand launched in 1959 and has sold more than one billion toys to date. The doll has become an icon in the toy market and has inspired video games and an animated film franchise (not connected to Gerwig’s Barbie), though it has faced accusations of promoting an unhealthy body image. Barbie sales fell in the mid-2010s as electronic toys and tablets rose in popularity, but it had its best sales growth in two decades in 2020. Though Mattel’s sales fell below expectations in the fourth quarter of 2022—revenue was $1.4 billion, lower than the expected $1.68 billion—the brand is optimistic about its growth and cites the upcoming Barbie film as a potential sales booster.

Crucial Quote

“To live in Barbie Land is to be a perfect being in a perfect place. Unless you have a full-on existential crisis. Or you’re a Ken,” the film’s synopsis on IMDB reads.

Key Background

Barbie has been more than a decade in the making. Mattel had previously partnered with Universal Pictures in 2009 and Sony Pictures in 2014 to produce the film before landing at Warner Bros. in 2018. Comedian Amy Schumer was reportedly attached to play Barbie and co-write the script in 2016 but exited in 2017 due to scheduling conflicts. Anne Hathaway was then reportedly set to play Barbie but exited in 2018 after the project shifted to Warner Bros. Robbie was first rumored to lead the film in October 2018 and confirmed in July 2019 with Gerwig and her husband Noah Baumbach set to write the script. Gerwig, writer-director of the Oscar-nominated films Little Women (2019) and Lady Bird (2017), was later confirmed as Barbie’s director in 2021. Filming lasted from March to July 2022, and paparazzi photos of outdoor shooting in Los Angeles unleashed an internet firestorm. Pictures of Robbie and Gosling in brightly colored outfits and rollerblades took over social media (which Robbie later called “mortifying”), stoking the internet’s appetite for the film. A teaser for the film, featuring Robbie as Barbie in a parody of 2001: A Space Odyssey, debuted in December and garnered 9 million views on YouTube.

Big Number

$100 million. That’s the budget for Barbie, according to a Variety report. This makes Gerwig one of just a handful of women to direct a film with a nine-figure budget.

What To Watch For

Will Barbie’s internet hype translate to box office success? Barbie’s July 21 premiere lands on the same day as another highly anticipated summer box-office hopeful, Christopher Nolan’s star-studded Oppenheimer, led by an ensemble cast including Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Rami Malek, and Florence Pugh. Both films having the same release date has led to media speculation about which film will have the bigger opening, and it’s inspired plenty of memes from social media users who plan on having a Barbie–Oppenheimer double-feature this summer.