'Barbie' will be available for home viewing on Sept. 12

Starting next week, you can buy your very own “Barbie.”

On Sept. 12, the smash hit from Warner Bros. will be available to purchase as a digital copy for $29.99 or as a 48-hour rental for $24.99. Participating platforms include Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+ and Google Play. The digital release will include over 30 minutes of bonus content.

It’s a seemingly counterintuitive move, considering “Barbie” currently ranks as the year’s highest-grossing movie and is still going strong in theaters. Featuring Margot Robbie as the iconic Mattel doll and Ryan Gosling as her starry-eyed Ken, “Barbie” racked up $13.2 million at the domestic box office over Labor Day weekend, taking second place behind the new Denzel Washington vehicle, “The Equalizer 3,” which earned $42.2 million. So far, “Barbie” has pulled in $1.38 billion worldwide since its release on July 21.

Nevertheless, “Barbie” — which is being advertised as “the biggest Warner Bros. movie in history” — will debut on the home video and rental market after an extremely short theatrical window of 53 days. By comparison, Paramount waited 89 days to make last summer’s blockbuster “Top Gun: Maverick” available for home viewing. That movie ended up grossing $1.49 billion worldwide; “Barbie” is currently pacing about 2% ahead of it, according to the trade publication Deadline.

Meanwhile, Warner Bros. is still pushing “Barbie” at theaters. Beginning Sept. 22, the movie will play a one-week run at IMAX theaters featuring previously unseen post-credits footage.

Despite its profitable summer, Warner Bros. could be looking at a loss in adjusted earnings due to the ongoing actors and writers strikes, according to Deadline. The studio recently pushed one of its biggest potential blockbusters, “Dune: Part Two,” from Nov. 3 to March of next year.

By Rafer Guzmán

rafer.guzman@newsday.com