Greta Gerwig has “changed the game” with Barbie, according to Margot Robbie

Greta Gerwig has always been a Hollywood inspiration, but her work on Barbie seems to have truly shaken things up.

The now-iconic Barbie film followed the titular doll, played by Margot Robbie, as she ventured out into the real world and figured out what it meant to be human. And Ken was also there.

As we state in our five-star review of the movie, “Barbie is an enigma of a movie. It is a children’s film made for adults, done in a thoughtful and loving way. It’s comforting, but never pandering. Like finding one of your old dolls in a drawer at your parent’s house, Barbie manages to take a stereotypical object we’re all familiar with, and make it personally existential.”

The movie took the world by storm this summer, being both a critical and commercial success. A lot of praise goes to the performances, but also to director Greta Gerwig, who according to Robbie, has “changed the game” of how movies will be made.

Greta Gerwig has made a “massive” difference for female directors

At the Deadline Contenders Film: Los Angeles panel, Margot Robbie, aka Barbie herself, discussed why Gerwig was the first person she went to to direct: “I definitely didn’t want to try and make a puff piece Barbie. I wanted us to run at the scary things as much as we celebrated the wonderful things,” the actor and executive producer explained. “That’s exactly why I went after Greta [Gerwig], because I was like, ‘She would do that.’”

Robbie gained rights to Barbie through her production company LuckyChap before approaching Gerwig. At that point there was no story in mind, but she was very optimistic: “Everyone in the world knows Barbie. If you look at a map, which we showed in the pitch presentation for this, it’s like Barbie’s recognition spans the entire world,” Robbie stated.

Robbie continued to speak highly of Gerwig, and how her work will no doubt lead the way for female directors and female-led stories in the future: “She has literally changed the game. From now on, it’s different because of what she’s done. It’s massive. And someone is going to come forward with another original idea that requires a big budget, and there’s going to be a female lead, and they’re going to point to Barbie and say, “But that made money.’ Everyone’s gonna go, ‘Oh, right we’re gonna have to green light this.’ And that’s amazing.”

The movie has no doubt set a precedent, now being the highest-grossing Warner Bros movie in history, and also the highest-grossing movie ever directed by a woman.

But there have of course been female directors before Gerwig, and at the same panel the Barbie auteur spoke up for them: “There’s no way we could be on stage and have done what we got to do if those women hadn’t done it,” she said. “So don’t feel alone in this place. I feel like there’s lots of them who’ve come before and will come after.”

Check out Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie at work in the Barbie behind the scenes footage below:

Check out our other Barbie coverage below:

• Barbie movie review: She’s everything, and so is Ken
• Barbie ending explained: Does Barbie become human?
• Best Easter eggs in the Barbie movie
• Barbie 2: Everything we know so far
• Barbie reviews: First reactions praise “cinematic triumph”
• Is the new Barbie movie for kids?
• Barbie has a Snyder Cut joke and fans are already angry
• Barbie movie soundtrack: All songs, artists, & more
• Barbie banned in Vietnam over infamous “nine dash line”
• The 33 movies that inspired Barbie
• Barbie movie cast: All actors and characters