![]() ![]() Several years ago, a film was being pitched based on the M&Ms - the candy’s commercials have long featured CGI anthropomorphized spokescandies. Of course, Hollywood betting on the box office potential of toys and major brands in nothing new - Transformers and Lego proved successful while others have stumbled like G.I. “They villainized the CEO of Mattel and the result of is everyone loves Mattel.” “Everyone goes in with the best of intentions but then holders go, ‘No we can’t say that about our brand!’” says one exec who has worked with major brands previously on potential projects. 1 toy and its corporate brand serve as the butt of jokes in Barbie. ![]() With Abrams, Dunham and Daniel Kaluuya ( Barney) attached, the caliber of filmmaking talent Mattel is enlisting is a promising, while several insiders lauded the company’s willingness to have both its No. “The bar is just higher because of the potential cheese factor,” says one top talent rep on the calculus of putting clients into toy films. The streamer recently dropped the project after reportedly spending $30 million on development costs.Īs for onscreen talent, there is still a wait-and-see attitude about future Mattel projects. Blumhouse was previously attached to a Magic 8 Ball movie before exiting the project after attempts at development, while Masters of the Universe bounced from Sony to Netflix. Other properties have had a similarly rocky journey. Barbie hopscotched between several studios, with multiple filmmakers and scripts falling by the wayside before Robbie boarded as a producer and turbocharged the project by bringing in Gerwig. (The DGA ratified a new contract with the AMPTP in June, allowing directors to continue their dealmaking with studios.)Īll of the Mattel projects could be franchise starters, making development an especially daunting process. Producers are hoping to keep up the project’s momentum in spite of the industry halting strike by meeting with directors, sources say. Sources tell THR that the studio is out to directors for a movie based on the toy racing cars, despite the project not yet having a script. is still trying to move along with another Mattel project: Hot Wheels. The dual SAG and WGA strike make negotiations a non-starter for now, and when talks are able to resume prospective paydays will be buoyed by the film’s record-breaking box office. Skydance has a Matchbox cars project.Ī Barbie sequel is still a way off (if a possibility at all) with THR previously reporting that neither producer-star Margot Robbie, director Greta Gerwig, nor co-star Ryan Gosling signed contracts with sequel options. Over at Universal, there is a Rock Em Sock Em Robots movie with Fast franchise star Vin Diesel. At MGM there is the Polly Pocket movie with Lena Dunham writing and directing and Lily Collins set to star, and a potential Wishbone movie. Under Robbie Brenner, Mattel Films has been busy during the past couple of years seeding various toy properties across Hollywood. Abrams, who is attached to produce Hot Wheels via his Bad Robot banner, is said to have described it as “emotional and grounded and gritty.”) ![]() ![]() “What is the edge to Hot Wheels? What is the juice?,” questions a producer. Barbie - a toy that has multi-generational attachments and is inextricably linked to larger cultural conversations like those of femineity and feminism - is not the same as Uno or View Master, both of which have been in development. Multiple insiders note that not all toys are created equal. “But if anyone is watching Barbie and saying, ‘You know why this movie worked? It’s because of a toy’ you are taking away the wrong lesson.” “Maybe Hollywood is smart enough, which is the funniest start to a sentence, ever,” says one producer with experience in the toy-to-screen pipeline. Away from Wall Street, execs and reps are parsing out lessons learned from Barbie, tempering some of the fervor by noting emulating its success (or even a fraction of its success) won’t be an easy task. ![]()
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