In the age of the MCU, where cameos and Easter Eggs abound in the minutes after the credits roll, those watching Greta Gerwig’s plastic fantastic cinematic sojourn will be wanting to know if Barbie has an end-credits scene, i.e. how long you’ll have to wait until you run off to Oppenheimer.
Released on July 21, 2023, Barbie had been in the works since before December 2016 when comedian Amy Schumer was originally attached to star as the lead of Barbie—full name Barbara Millicent “Barbie” Roberts—a fashion doll and fictional character manufactured by American toy company Mattel, Inc. that launched on March 9, 1959. Schumer later reportedly backed out due to creative differences, per The Hollywood Reporter.
Then, in 2019, Robbie was confirmed to be taking on the lead role of Barbie. “It comes with a lot of baggage,” Robbie told Variety in July 2023 of playing the iconic doll. “And a lot of nostalgic connections. But with that comes a lot of exciting ways to attack it. People generally hear Barbie and think, ‘I know what that movie is going to be,’ and then they hear that Greta Gerwig is writing and directing it, and they’re like, ‘Oh, well, maybe I don’t.’”
As Ken, Ryan Gosling, meanwhile, got real about playing his character at CinemaCon 2023 in April. “I have to be honest: I only knew Ken from afar before now. I didn’t know Ken from within. I doubted my Kenergy,” he said. “I didn’t see it, but Margot and Greta conjured this out of me somehow. One day I was bleaching my hair, shaving my legs and wearing bespoke pink outfits, and rollerblading down Venice Beach.” Read on to find out how long you’ll have to sit through the credits before diving into Christopher Nolan’s wartime epic, Oppenheimer, which was released on the same day in a phenomenon now known as “Barbenheimer”.
Does Barbie have post-credits scenes?
Good news! Barbie does not have post-credits scenes so off to Oppenheimer you trot. Though, you may want to hang around to listen to the truly epic soundtrack, which features music from some of the biggest names in the industry and with a cute little nod to the Mattel toy line at the very end.
Barbie The Album features tracks from an incredible lineup of artists including Fifty Fifty, Charli XCX, Nicki Minaj, Ice Spice, PinkPantheress, Karol G, Dua Lipa, Lizzo, Ava Max, Dominic Fike, Khalid, The Kid LAROI, Tame Impala, HAIM and GAYLE.
Multiple Grammy winner Mark Ronson initially went from producing two songs for the film to executive-producing the entire thing as well as scoring the movie. “In the original brief, it only said two songs. It was kind of tongue-in-cheekily named by Noah and Greta “Barbie and Ken Hit Songs”: a mini-directive of what they imagined those songs being,” Ronson explained to Vulture. “The Barbie song is about her perfect night, and the Ken song—I got the feeling as soon as I read the script—is about this guy that just can’t get out of his own way. We all have these masks that we put on to impress people, and all we really want to be is ourselves. And that lyric just came to me, “I’m just Ken. Anywhere else I’d be a 10.”
The song resonated with Gosling so much that he begged to sing it himself. Gosling was a Mouseketeer, so Ronson wasn’t worried about the actor’s ability to sing (he’d also shown off his vocal chops in La La Land) but Gosling’s “subdued baritone” gave Ronson pause. It turns out Ronson had nothing to worry about. “He really got [that] it had to walk this line of not being funny or parody,” he told Vanity Fair. “But obviously, the song is also kind of ridiculous at times. So he was really amazing, and when he really did start hitting the big notes, I was like, this dude is a vocal powerhouse!” Ronson decided to “take it all the way” by bringing in Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash and new Foo Fighters drummer Josh Freese—who replaced the late Taylor Hawkins—to play on the track.
Billie Eilish wrote “What I Was Made For” for the film and directed the accompanying music video, explaining to Apple Music’s Zane Low the process of writing the song: “We truly sat down and Finneas started playing piano, and… those first Couple lyrics, “I used to float, now I just fall down,” just came right out…”I used to know, but I’m not sure now what I was made for.”
She continued, “The start of writing this song, the first day of writing, Finneas and I, especially me because it’s from my perspective, we were purely only thinking about Barbie. I did not think about myself once in the writing process.” She then went on to say was so focused on the movie. “I was purely inspired by this movie and this character and the way I thought she would feel, and wrote about that.”
Billie said it was one of the most incredible experiences of her life. “The next week I was playing it in the car all day and playing it for everybody. And I was like, “This is exactly how I feel. And I didn’t even mean to be saying it.” It was truly the trippiest thing I’ve ever experienced in my life. I was like, oh, I absolutely was writing about myself, but I was thinking about myself from a third person. And I was thinking about myself objectively, which also made me feel really connected to her, me.”
Billie said she was stunned by the first couple of minutes she saw of the film when Gerwig invited her to an advanced screening. “A minute in, Finneas and I looked at each other like … Whoa, this is insane. She’d play a scene and she’d walk in front of us and she’d go, “So, in the next part, what I want it to be is I want it to really feel like this,” and she’d do her Greta Gerwig-ass thing and she’d come up and she’d show us her passion and tell us all,” Billie recalled.
Barbie The Album tracklist
1. Lizzo – Pink
2. Dua Lipa – Dance The Night
3. Nicki Minaj & Ice Spice – Barbie World (with Aqua)
4. Charli XCX – Speed Drive
5. KAROL G – WATATI (feat. Aldo Ranks)
6. Sam Smith – Man I Am
7. Tame Impala – Journey To The Real World
8. Ryan Gosling – I’m Just Ken
9. Dominic Fike – Hey Blondie
10. HAIM – Home
11. Billie Eilish – What Was I Made For?
12. The Kid LAROI – Forever & Again
13. Khalid – Silver Platter
14. PinkPantheress – Angel
15. GAYLE – butterflies
16. Ava Max – Choose Your Fighter
Our mission at STYLECASTER is to bring style to the people, and we only feature products we think you’ll love as much as we do. Please note that if you purchase something by clicking on a link within this story, we may receive a small commission from the sale.