Margot Robbie knows Barbie can make $1B at the box office

Greta Gerwig’s Barbie is — by all accounts — a major success and a fantastic debut for Mattel Films‘ filmography based on their established toy lines. At this point, the film is creeping up on making $1 billion worldwide.

Speaking with Collider, starring Barbie Margot Robbie knows the film can hit that mark. She even predicted it during the green light meeting, convincing higher-ups that Gerwig’s interpretation of the toy line would bring in the big bucks. She then started spouting off examples of big ideas that were combined with visionary directors, and how that combination make the industry’s biggest hits. Things like dinosaurs and Steven Spielberg, for example. She closed it out by ensuring the movie would make a billion at the box office, which she admitted could’ve been overselling it… but hey, it worked.

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. And then I gave a series of examples like, “dinosaurs and [Steven] Spielberg,” that and that, that and that – 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?!

It might still be overselling the idea, but Barbie is certainly making waves at the box office, now only narrowly behind Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’s $845.3 million. If it can’t reach the $1 billion mark, it can at least come close to it, which is far past its $70 million projected box office.

The success of Barbie might be the more significant reason why Mattel Films is upswinging production of multiple films based on their established toy brands, from the expected like Monopoly, Polly Pocket, and Hot Wheels, to the more bizarre like Vin Diesel’s Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots.