Oscar-nominated directorGreta Gerwig’s highly anticipated live-action “Barbie” earned $155 million at the box office during its opening weekend, making the Sacramento native the first female director to achieve such a feat.

The record was previously held by 2019’s “Captain Marvel,” which earned $153 million and was co-directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck.

Starting as early as Thursday, July 20 — a day before the official theatrical release of the movie — crowds packed auditoriums across the country, sporting their brightest, shiniest and most over-the-top pink ensembles. Women made up 65% of “Barbie” audiences, a majority that men usually hold for films that generate more than $100 million in their debut, with 40% of moviegoers younger than 25.

In the Bay Area, children attending with their parents to lifelong fans of the doll and even “Barbie”-curious moviegoers flocked to their local theater.

“That’s my childhood,” San Bruno resident Alex Guituan told The Chronicle on Friday, July 21, before heading into the auditorium at Cinemark Century Daly City 20. “I had Barbies growing up, I preferred Barbies over Bratz dolls. It was just my generation.”

“Barbie,” which cost $145 million to make, starsMargot Robbieand Ryan Gosling as stereotypical iterations of the ever-popular Barbie and Ken dolls by Mattel and follows the pair as they travel to the real world and begin to question their lives in Barbieland.

“Barbie” has been at the center of social media discourse and memes since it was announced that Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer,” a tense historical tale following former UC Berkeley professor and theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer as he worked on the Manhattan Project, would release on the same day. The phenomenon, dubbed “Barbenheimer,” worked in favor of movie theaters nationwide making this past weekend the largest overall box office weekend since the pandemic began and the fourth largest of all time, according toVariety.

美联社(Associated Press)反对tributed to this report.

Reach Zara Irshad:Zara.Irshad@sfchronicle.com