By: Rachael Tan

It seems perfectly logical and perfectly ridiculous. A Barbie movie determined to bring a Barbie world to life uses up the global supply of pink paint.

Well, that’s exactly what happened for the film “Barbie,” directed by Greta Gerwig, which hits theaters July 21. But a few other factors likely contributed to the impressive cleanout.

The paint used for the set was from Rosco, a company known for its house paint and deep connections with Hollywood films and television industries.

“They used as much paint as we had,” Lauren Proud, vice president of global marketing at Rosco.

She was referring specifically to the company’s supply of fluorescent pink paint, which was used for creating most of the sets for the film’s Barbieland, which includes the life-sized barbie houses, and the pink brick road seen in the trailer.

She joked, “The world ran out of pink.”

However, Proud went on to clarify that it wasn’t that simple. During “Barbie’s” production in 2022, the COVID-19 pandemic was jamming the global supply chain on a variety of products and goods, including Rosco’s paint.

The company was also still recovering from the deep freeze that encompassed Texas in early 2021. The freeze damaged vital materials used to create the paint, resulting in Rosco operating with less paint than it normally had.

Proud acknowledged, though, that, “They did clean us out on paint.”

Even so, there was just enough paint to continue the production of the film, which was mostly shot at the Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden in the United Kingdom.

“I wanted the pinks to be very bright, and everything to be almost too much,” Director Gerwig said.

Viewers will soon be able to see the movie, which is marketed to Barbie lovers and haters, when it hits theaters on July 21, 2023.