It’s obvious the Barbie movie has signed plenty of promotional deals. In fact, if you don’t have a promo deal with Barbie, you’re doing something wrong. But here’s something else the producers have a boatload of – pink paint. They needed so much pink paint to create the pink-saturated Barbie world that their supplier ran dry. 

The set designers for the Warner Bros. film ordered their pinks from a company called Rosco, which is routinely called on to supply paint for Hollywood movies. Rosco’s VP of global marketing told the Los Angeles Times, that yes, the color scheme for the film’s Barbie Land set did in fact tap out their supply of fluorescent pink paint.

The production designer even told Architectural Digest that “the world ran out of pink.” (When you live in Barbie Land, you’re encouraged to speak with such bombast.)

Where did it go?

Can one movie set really kick the pink paint keg? Well, Barbie was filmed mostly in 2022, and, and the company’s inventory was already low due to COVID era supply shortages and the 2021 freeze in Texas that damaged many of the raw materials needed for making paint. So no, it wasn’t all Barbie’s fault.

Despite that perfectly reasonable explanation, the studio rep’s statement that “the world ran out of pink” drew all the attention of the world’s media, including Europe and India. But we hope readers will take note that APC didn’t panic. APC didn’t fan the flames of the mythic pink paint shortage. (We’re only covering the coverage.)  

An article in Family Handyman said the situation could create problems for homeowners influenced by the movie’s saturated color scheme, stating that for now, pink has become an “it” color. Some folks wanting to use it to decorate had to wait until the supply returned to normal. “Homeowners who envisioned a niche Barbie pink-themed room found their plans put on hold. The scarcity of the paint forced them to wait for the supply to replenish or consider alternative color schemes,” according to the Family Handyman.

USA Today even published an article called Pink paint shortage: Where to buy after Barbie movie causes shortage, offering consumers advice for buying pink elsewhere (Behr, Rust-Oleum, Krylon).