Building a Barbie world isn’t easy. Apparently, it takes enough pink paint to cause an international shortage.
During a recent interview with Architectural Digest, the film’s production designer Sarah Greenwood said creating Barbie’s world meant cleaning out a certain fluorescent shade of pink from the company Rosco.
“The world ran out of pink,” Greenwood told the outlet.
“We were literally creating the alternate universe of Barbie Land,” the director, Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird, Little Women) added.
“Everything needed to be tactile, because toys are, above all, things you touch.”
In a follow-up interview about the international pink paint shortage, the Los Angeles Times spoke to the vice president of global marketing at Rosco.
“They used as much paint as we had,” Lauren Proud confirmed. However, Greenwood’s claim was still a touch hyperbolic.
Barbie’s production took place in 2022 and the pandemic, along with the 2021 Texas deep freeze, had already led to a shortage of their supplies.
“There was this shortage and then we gave them everything we could — I don’t know they can claim credit,” Proud said but did still acknowledge, “They did clean us out on paint.”
The film has been a long time coming as it was first announced in 2009 but switched production studios in 2014. After several writer, director, and cast changes Margot Robbie finally was cast as the main character in 2019 and Gerwig was confirmed as the director and co-writer along with Noah Baumbach in 2021. Barbie is the story of Barbie after she is expelled from “Barbieland” and must find happiness in the human world.
Barbie hits cinemas on July 21st, check out the newest trailer below:
