You’d think getting a blockbuster movie would be perfect advertising, but Mattel had some qualms about Barbie. One scene of the Barbie movie in particular didn’t quite meet what the company foresaw for what’s looking to be one of the best movies of the year.
In a Time profile on the making of the adventure movie, director Greta Gerwig and star Margot Robbie discuss how they had to advocate for the script. Richard Dickson, COO at Mattel, actually flew to London because one sequence wasn’t sitting well with him, but once Robbie and Gerwig played it out, all was well.
“When you look on the page, the nuance isn’t there, the delivery isn’t there,” Robbie states. Especially for a high concept fantasy movie like Barbie, sometimes you need to learn more.
Mattel has been hands on through production under the Mattel Films division, which has undergone a metamorphosis. Barbie will be the first release from the redone studio, and they want to start out strong.
Gerwig and co-writer Noah Baumbach went through a “Barbie boot camp” during pre-production, before writing the script. While they were penning the story, Robbie says there was no pressure to go any particular direction, then what arrived was pretty out there.
“We worked hard to give them their space and let them come up with what the movie was going to be, uninterrupted, without people pushing an agenda on them,” Robbie says. “Then when I saw the script, I was like, ‘They’re never going to let us do this. This is really pushing it.'”
But here we are, and Barbie’s one of the biggest new movies of the year. It and the Oppenheimer release date occur on the same day, and really, who could ask for a better double-bill? Check out our lists of the best Margot Robbie movies and best Ryan Gosling movies to prepare for seeing them together in hot pink.