“Barbie” has been in improvement since roughly 2009, with a number of completely different studios, creatives and actresses connected to the undertaking over time. Mattel initially signed a cope with Common Footage, after which in 2014, the corporate scrapped that and went to Sony, which arrange former “Intercourse and the Metropolis” author Jenny Bicks to deal with the script. (Bicks additionally wrote the criminally underrated 2003 Amanda Bynes comedy “What a Lady Needs,” which is neither right here nor there.) Then Sony introduced in Diablo Cody, of “Juno” fame, for a rewrite. In line with Cody herself, she by no means managed to show in a completed script.
“I believe I do know why I [s–t] the mattress,” she told GQ in an interview concerning the failed undertaking earlier this month. “After I was first employed for this, I don’t assume the tradition had … embraced the femme or the bimbo as legitimate feminist archetypes but. If you happen to lookup ‘Barbie’ on TikTok you’ll discover this glorious subculture that celebrates the female, however in 2014, taking this skinny blonde white doll and making her right into a heroine was a tall order.”
By 2016, Amy Schumer was introduced on to star as Barbie, however the comic famous on Instagram this month that she was by no means engaged on the undertaking similtaneously Cody, and that she in actual fact took her personal move on the script together with her sister and producing companion Kim Caramele.
That model fell aside in 2017, when Schumer dropped out of the undertaking as a result of “scheduling conflicts.” She told The Hollywood Reporter final 12 months that her imaginative and prescient didn’t align with that of Mattel executives, who needed Barbie to be an inventor who comes up with “excessive heels product of Jell-O.”
“They positively didn’t wish to do it the best way I needed to do it, the solely means I used to be keen on doing it,” mentioned Schumer. In an interview with Andy Cohen on “Watch What Occurs Dwell!” final month, she added that the Mattel take didn’t really feel “feminist and funky.”
However Mattel was persistent within the face of failure, and in 2017, Anne Hathaway was introduced as a brand new star with a premiere date scheduled for 2020 (this proposed timing was maybe the final word signal of doom). Then Sony’s possibility expired, and the entire undertaking appeared cursed — till Warner Bros. took the rights, introduced on Robbie and her manufacturing firm LuckyChap, and landed Gerwig in 2019. (Robbie and LuckyChap additionally produced the Oscar-winning movies “Promising Younger Girl” and “I, Tonya.”)
Gerwig’s take is “brimming with optimism,” Robbie said in an interview printed final week. The director told the New York Times Magazine that she made the movie to enchantment to individuals who each love and hate Barbie. “Issues will be each/and,” she mentioned. “I’m doing the factor and subverting the factor.”
Most significantly, there shall be no excessive heels product of Jell-O. I believe we are able to all have a good time that.
