Randall Park has some thoughts on the massive success of the Barbie movie, which right out of the gate, he thinks is great. The actor who’s promoting his directorial debut, Shortcomings, has nothing but praise for the film. Where Park has an issue is Hollywood reacting to Barbie‘s success in typical Hollywood fashion. Namely, trying to milk the concept the death.
While Barbie has no doubt been a cultural phenomenon that literally coaxed a sizable amount of people to go to the theaters for the first time since COVID, toymaker Mattel has already announced aggressive plans to unleash a cinematic universe based on several of its properties from Hot Wheels to, we kid you not, the Magic 8-Ball. (There’s even talk of an Uno movie in the mix, and your guess as is good as ours there.)
Randall Park is gobsmacked at how Hollywood is missing the big picture. Via Rolling Stone:
This industry is taking the wrong lessons. For example, Barbie is this massive blockbuster, and the idea is: Make more movies about toys! No. Make more movies by and about women!
Right. The lesson here should be that you gave this brilliant independent woman filmmaker in Greta Gerwig the reins to a big blockbuster movie and had Margot Robbie star in and produce it.
Exactly! Think like that. It’s Greta Gerwig!
In fairness, a long-simmering Polly Pocket movie from Lena Dunham has been pulled off the back-burner following the success of Barbie, which is more in the vein of what Park is talking about. However, that’s just one out of 14 toy properties that Mattel is aggressively trying to make in hopes of finding more sweet Barbie cash.
Shortcomings is now playing in theaters.
(Via Rolling Stone)