As Barbie continues to break box office records, Mattel is plotting the future of toy-based entertainment and hopefully not taking any of the wrong lessons from the Greta Gerwig film’s success.
“Everybody hopes that when you create a movie that there is going to be a franchise,” Mattel Films head Robbie Brenner told Variety about the MCU (Mattel Cinematic Universe). “That’s the hope — that it goes on and on and it’s a gift that keeps giving. But, in this day and age, you just want to get the first one right.” The future first ones include movies based on Hot Wheels (“grounded and gritty,” according to producer J.J. Abrams), Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots (starring Vin Diesel), and Magic 8 Ball (“a PG-13 thriller”). There’s also Major Matt Mason (this guy) with Tom Hanks, the Peter Farrelly-produced Wishbone, and Thomas & Friends from World War Z director Marc Forster.
The two most potentially promising movies based on Mattel toys are Polly Pocket, written and directed by Lena Dunham and starring Lily Collins, and Barney. “I don’t know that it’s necessarily going to be darker. It’s just going to be unique — more of like a Being John Malkovich or an Adaptation,” Brenner said about Daniel Kaluuya’s “A24-type” purple dinosaur movie.
If Christopher Nolan releases his next thoughtful epic on the same day as the View Master movie, we’ll have another Barbenheimer on our hands. Or maybe Barbie/Oppenheimer was a once-in-a-generation phenomenon, and the reason Barbie is a hit is because it was made by a talented writer and director, not because of the IP. One of the two.
(Via Variety)