The blockbuster comedy, which stars Margot Robbie as the well-known Mattel fashion doll, earned £67.5 million (€78.3 million) in its first three weeks of release. This was enough to knock The Super Mario Bros. Movie, the previous chart-topper, into second place with £54.6 million.

With a strong showing at the box office, Barbie may surpass Top Gun: Maverick, which brought in £83.7 million as the year's highest-grossing movie.

It has already surpassed the Top Gun sequel, which had just been released for three weeks when it had earned £50.1 million, or around three-quarters of Barbie's current earnings.

The other summer blockbuster on the big screen, Oppenheimer, is still drawing crowds.

Now that the movie has earned £39.2 million in Ireland and the UK, it has surpassed Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (£30.4 million) and Guardians of The Galaxy Vol. 3 (£36.7 million) to take third place in the year's box office rankings.

The biography of the famous American physicist, J. Robert Oppenheimer, who was instrumental in the development of the atomic bomb, is a long cry from the heroic escapades of Marvel Comics, much alone the fantastical world of live-action fashion dolls.

However, according to the most recent box office data, which is available until August 6th, Oppenheimer and Barbie have both attracted a sizable audience. Some fans have even chosen to watch the two films back-to-back as a ‘Barbenheimer’ double bill.

Their position as stand-alone releases rather than spin-offs or components of established franchises may also contribute to some of their success.

The British Film Institute and Comscore both publish box office statistics, with figures for Ireland and the UK combined for reporting.

Between its second and third weekends of release, Barbie's box office receipts dropped by 40%, but the movie has already demonstrated enough strength at the box office to ensure that its overall revenues will rise in the coming weeks.

If it succeeds in matching or perhaps surpassing Top Gun: Maverick, which topped the charts last year, it may rank in the top 10 highest-grossing film ever made in Ireland.