Even though it’s currently the 14th highest grossing movie of all time, Barbie gobbled up all the bucks despite being not being a franchise movie. It’s not even getting a sequel (though it might — maybe, maybe not — get a Ken spinoff). What it did do was inspire toy company Mattel to do the next big thing: launch one of them cinematic universes. They’re making one for Hot Wheels, one for Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots, one for Polly Pockets, one for Barney, even one for the Magic 8 Ball. They just announced another one. Thing is, it’s already been parodied by SNL.
Back in April, during the episode hosted by Ana de Armas, the show aired a send-up of Barbie, which was still a few months from conquering the world’s multiplexes. In the pre-taped fake trailer, they joked about the most ridiculous Mattel toy line they could turn into a movie: the American Girl line, which was launched in 1986 and which featured dolls of various ethnicities.
But instead of a feel-good romp, the film would delve into each one’s tragic backstories. One lived in grim Victorian times. Another was a prisoner of war. One is a runaway slave. Another simply has glasses.
“Not all dolls live in a dream, some are bigger, younger, sadder, some dolls are American Girls,” says the narrator. “Did all their family members die of old timey diseases? Absolutely.”
Anyway, jump half a year and this SNL sketch is becoming a reality.
Per Entertainment Weekly, the film will be written by Lindsey Anderson Beer, of Pet Sematary: Bloodlines, who in a statement praised the “historically accurate” dolls” and swore that her film based on them would tackle “issues of girlhood in a real and compelling way.”
That does kind of make it sound a lot like the trailer, which is so historically accurate that two of the living dolls die of cholera.
(Via EW)