Greta Gerwig, who I am confident can excel at just about anything to which she puts her beautiful mind, has signed on to co-write Warner Bros. and Mattel’s forthcoming Barbie movie with her extremely twee partner, Noah Baumbach. She’s also being considered to direct, though the deal is not closed….yet.
Barbie will be portrayed by Margot Robbie, which checks out. That said, while I really do have every faith in Gerwig (based entirely on Lady Bird, Frances Ha, and a couple stills I’ve seen from Little Women), this does seem perilous. What can it possibly be about? Can it be anything other than incredibly dumb? Maybe that was the challenge the two had in mind when they took this project on.
Recall that this is not Barbie’s first rodeo. (Maybe that should be the plot?) According to the Hollywood Reporter,
A Barbie live-action feature has been in the works since 2018. When it was set up at Sony, Barbiehad first Amy Schumer then Anne Hathaway attached to star and Alethea Jones directing. When Barbie moved her Malibu Dream House from Sony to Warners late last year, Patty Jenkins was circling as director but nothing was ever formalized.
Both Gerwig and Baumbach are at their finest when they’re doing charming coming-of-age tales, but unless 29-year-old Robbie is going to play a teenager, that’s probably not the direction this is headed. My question, as always, is: Where does Timothée Chalamet fit into this?