"Barbie" Movie Sets Used Up Entire Supply of Pink Paint

‘Barbie’ Movie Used So Much Pink Paint That the World Ran Out of the Color for a Bit

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It's been a year since we received the first look at Greta Gerwig's Barbie movie featuring Margot Robbie in a bright pink convertible. At long last, the film is about a month away from coming out in theaters and people couldn't be more excited. The trailer offered a longer look at the candy-colored world of Barbieland where all of the Barbies and Kens live. To make the sets reminiscent of Dreamhouses and nostalgic toys from Mattel, the production of the Barbie movie had to use a lot of pink paint… A LOT. So much so that they ended up consuming the company Rosco's entire supply.

The Barbie movie begins with the protagonist Barbie, played by Robbie, living her ideal life in the alternate universe of Barbieland. Gerwig and the movie team wanted to instill as much of the iconic Barbie aesthetic as possible into the set design. “Maintaining the ‘kid-ness’ was paramount,” Gerwig says. “I wanted the pinks to be very bright, and everything to be almost too much.” And of course, nothing says “Barbiecore” more than pink. From the houses to the slides to the trim of the pool, everything was decorated with vibrant pink paint. By the end of construction, they had used up the international supply of fluorescent pink Rosco paint.

This attention to detail carried over into many details of the Barbieland world. For instance, rather than CGI the sky, and the view of the San Jacinto mountains, Gerwig had everything hand-painted. “Everything needed to be tactile, because toys are, above all, things you touch,” she says. Set designers Sara Greenwood and set decorator Katie Spencer were also tasked with recreating Barbie's Dreamhouse—a goal that required the duo to order a toy model so they could study it. They quickly noted how odd the proportions were in comparison with the Barbie doll. “The ceiling is actually quite close to one’s head, and it only takes a few paces to cross the room,” Gerwig says. “It has the odd effect of making the actors seem big in the space but small overall.”

Barbie will be out in theaters, in all its pink glory, on July 21, 2023.