Over the previous week and a half, Greta Gerwig’s comedy “Barbie” handed the billion-dollar mark on the world field workplace, and it gained’t be lengthy before it overtakes “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” to develop into 2023’s highest-grossing film worldwide — a title it’s more likely to maintain onto. That’s a staggering achievement in so some ways: No film directed by a girl has ever topped the yearly field workplace, and it’s been effectively over 20 years since a live-action movie with none important motion parts turned the largest film of the yr. (That’d be the Jim Carrey automobile “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 be taught all the precise classes from it. Instead, they’ll most likely simply greenlight extra motion pictures about toys. Still, “Barbie” proved no less than 5 issues to be true, if resolution makers are keen to assume exterior the pink field.

1. A summer time film will be well 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 taking pictures, they’re in a continuing state of flux, with new writers clambering aboard to sew every part into some type of viable patchwork quilt.

“Barbie,” in contrast, 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 accomplice, 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 more likely to occur solely when a studio hires sensible writers, resists sanding down their sensibilities, and provides them sufficient time and house to actually 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 develop into breakout hits lately, 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 as a right, handing their greatest 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 ignored of the cultural dialog — the movie additionally demonstrated how ladies will present up in record-breaking numbers to look at one thing that really speaks to them (usually bringing pals 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 offered 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 don’t have 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 previous reliables.

4. A fantastic soundtrack is efficient advertising and marketing

Though studios will discover each attainable technique to market a film — from billboards to Instagram adverts 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 develop into few and much between lately, regardless of movies like “Black Panther” and “The Greatest Showman” amply demonstrating the increase a movie can get from an album that folks can’t cease taking part in.

It’s good, then, that the “Barbie” soundtrack is full of 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 develop into a music-industry hitmaker and virality on that platform can rival any paid advertising and marketing push, a enjoyable pop soundtrack just like the one “Barbie” boasts is price its weight in rose gold.

5. Stop saving the good things for the sequel

With “Barbie” on a path to develop into 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 contemporary is that it tells an entire story and doesn’t spend time establishing spinoffs or sequels. In reality, it ends in a spot that may be exhausting 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 when I spoke to Gerwig after her blockbuster opening weekend, she stated she’d put each concept she had into this film with out the considered doing extra: “At this moment, it’s all I’ve got.”

A “Barbie” sequel would definitely earn a living, however there’s no approach 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 center 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 widespread sense over cynical money grabs, the thought of “Barbie” as a one-and-done deserves consideration: After all, a toy solely lasts endlessly if you already know when to place it away.