But surely Barbie does nowhere near as well if it doesn’t have the Barbie IP. The movie plays largely as a parody of Barbie anyway, so it’s very easy to imagine

But surely Barbie does nowhere near as well if it doesn’t have the Barbie IP. The movie plays largely as a parody of Barbie anyway, so it’s very easy to imagine nearly the exact same movie with a find/replace on a few trademarks in the screenplay and logos on screen. And I think that movie would have had a niche audience that adores it, but wouldn’t have broken out into the phenomenon we saw.