Apparently Creating Barbie's World In The Margot Robbie Movie Required So Much Pink Paint That It Caused An International Shortage

With Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie less than two months away, it’s starting to feel like we’re about to live in a Barbie world given the phenomenon the movie looks like it’s about to become. Along with Barbiecore sweeping celebrity fashion trends, we have to wonder where else bright pink might pop up. Perhaps fans of one of summer’s most anticipated 2023 new movie releases will look to the incredible set design for Barbie’s world. Paint companies be warned, the fluorescent shade already had an international shortage while Barbie was being filmed. 

That’s right, when the set for Barbie Land was being created at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden in England, production designer Sarah Greenwood recalled the movie causing the Rosco paint to seriously run low on the particular shade of bright pink found all over Barbie’s home. As Greenwood said: 

The world ran out of pink.

That’s a lot of pink paint. While speaking to Architectural Digest, the filmmakers behind creating their vision of Barbie’s home shared they were inspired by the midcentury modernism designs found in Palm Springs, California and the iconic Barbie Dreamhouses, of course. Writer/director Greta Gerwig shared her thoughts on putting together the Barbie Land set, saying this: 

Maintaining the ‘kid-ness’ was paramount. I wanted the pinks to be very bright, and everything to be almost too much. [I didn’t want to] forget what made me love Barbie when I was a little girl.

Ahead of the July 21 theatrical release, the full trailer for Barbie was released last week. Check out how Barbie's world turned out below: 

There seems to be so many intricacies of Barbie’s world to look out for in the set. From what we’ve seen so far, we already have so many questions about Barbie Land, such as why is there an airport in Barbie Land and why is everyone named either Barbie or Ken? Either way, it will be fun to explore what the filmmakers created for the movie, though as Gerwig warned, there are “no walls and no doors” in Barbie Land, and that brings a very specific intrigue to the lore of the whole thing. As she continued: 

Dreamhouses assume that you never have anything you wish was private—there is no place to hide.

As the trailer sets up, Margot Robbie’s Barbie will somehow snap out of her dollhouse mentality, suddenly get flat feet and start think about dying. She will then embark on a journey (with Ryan Gosling’s already viral Ken) to the real world, where she’ll go to prison and go on the run. Even though it looks like most of the movie will take place outside of Barbie’s world, we can’t wait to see all the intricacies of Barbie Land and be collectively blinded by all the neon pink. 

Sarah El-Mahmoud
Staff Writer

Sarah El-Mahmoud has been with CinemaBlend since 2018 after graduating from Cal State Fullerton with a degree in Journalism. In college, she was the Managing Editor of the award-winning college paper, The Daily Titan, where she specialized in writing/editing long-form features, profiles and arts & entertainment coverage, including her first run-in with movie reporting, with a phone interview with Guillermo del Toro for Best Picture winner, The Shape of Water. Now she's into covering YA television and movies, and plenty of horror. Word webslinger. All her writing should be read in Sarah Connor’s Terminator 2 voice over.