Previously, Greta Gerwig has been selected to write and direct the upcoming screenplay Barbie Film, Juno author Diablo Cody was tagged with the letter. In her opinion, the project was completely different from what it is now.
Previously, Greta Gerwig has been selected to write and direct the upcoming screenplay Barbie Film, Juno author Diablo Cody was tagged with the letter. In her opinion, the project was completely different from what it is now.
Why Didn’t Diablo Cody’s Barbie Movie Happen?
Speak with GQ MagazineCody spoke about her time developing a Barbie film with actress and comedian Amy Schumer. In 2018, Cody left the project with the infamous comment that she was “literally unable” to submit a script for the project. She thinks that’s because people wanted a very different Barbie movie back then.
“I think I know why I’m – the bed,” Cody said. “When I was first hired, I don’t think the culture hadn’t accepted the femme or the bimbo as valid feminist archetypes. If you search “Barbie” on TikTok, you’ll come across this wonderful subculture that celebrates the feminine, but in 2014, making this skinny, blonde, white doll a heroine was a big challenge.”
Cody went on to say that the “idea of an anti-Barbie” movie made sense a decade ago and that Sony Pictures wanted “a feminist take on Barbie as the girl boss” rather than something more faithful.
“This anti-Barbie idea made a lot of sense given the feminist rhetoric of a decade ago,” Cody said. “I didn’t really have the freedom to write anything that stayed true to the iconography at the time; They wanted a feminist take on Barbie as a girl boss, and I couldn’t figure it out because Barbie isn’t.”
Cody also noted that the hit 2014 film The Lego Movie cast a big shadow over Barbie’s development. According to the author, any meta approach or joke Cody took was deemed too close to The Lego Movie, although Cody joked that we’re far enough from the movie now to have Will Ferrell – the antagonist of ” The Lego Movie”. – Star in Barbie.
“I’ve heard countless references to the Lego movie in development,” Cody said. “And it posed a problem for me because they did it so well. Every time I came up with something meta, it looked too much like what they had done. It was an obstacle for me, but now enough time has passed that they can just cast Will Ferrell (antagonist from The Lego Movie) as an antagonist in a real Barbie movie and no one cares.”
Barbie is scheduled to premiere on July 21, 2023.