A Mattel Movie Boom for Years – Update in 2023
As Barbie continues its international domination, grossing over $1 billion on the field workplace after solely its third week of launch, the suitable events proceed victory laps round their respective Malibu Dream Properties.
Final week, in between fielding questions on Hollywood’s twin strikes, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav and different WBD execs invoked the Barbie identify a number of occasions throughout the firm’s second-quarter earnings report, noting that the film can be a boon to third-quarter.
Throughout Mattel’s quarterly earnings report on the finish of July, CEO Ynon Kreiz known as Barbie a “milestone” within the toymaker’s historical past. “The most important shift in our technique and in our DNA was to comprehend that individuals who purchase our product usually are not simply shoppers, they’re followers,” stated Kreiz.
Away from Wall Road, execs and reps are parsing out classes realized from Barbie, tempering a few of the fervor by noting emulating its success (or perhaps a fraction of its success) gained’t be a simple activity.
“Perhaps Hollywood is wise sufficient, which is the funniest begin to a sentence, ever,” says one producer with expertise within the toy-to-screen pipeline. “But when anybody is watching Barbie and saying, ‘You recognize why this film labored? It’s due to a toy’ you take away the fallacious lesson.”
A number of insiders observe that not all toys are created equal. Barbie — a toy that has multi-generational attachments and is inextricably linked to bigger cultural conversations like these of femineity and feminism — is just not the identical as Uno or View Grasp, each of which have been in growth. “What’s the edge to Sizzling Wheels? What’s the juice?,” questions a producer. (J.J. Abrams, who’s hooked up to supply Sizzling Wheels through his Dangerous Robotic banner, is claimed to have described it as “emotional and grounded and gritty.”)
Underneath Robbie Brenner, Mattel Movies has been busy throughout the previous couple of years seeding varied toy properties throughout Hollywood. At MGM there may be the Polly Pocket film with Lena Dunham writing and directing and Lily Collins set to star, and a possible Wishbone film. Over at Common, there’s a Rock Em Sock Em Robots film with Quick franchise star Vin Diesel. Skydance has a Matchbox automobiles undertaking.
A Barbie sequel remains to be a method off (if a chance in any respect) with THR beforehand reporting that neither producer-star Margot Robbie, director Greta Gerwig, nor co-star Ryan Gosling signed contracts with sequel choices. The twin SAG and WGA strike make negotiations a non-starter for now, and when talks are capable of resume potential paydays can be buoyed by the movie’s record-breaking field workplace.
Nonetheless, Warner Bros. remains to be making an attempt to maneuver together with one other Mattel undertaking: Sizzling Wheels. Sources inform THR that the studio is out to administrators for a film based mostly on the toy racing automobiles, regardless of the undertaking not but having a script. Producers are hoping to maintain up the undertaking’s momentum regardless of the trade halting strike by assembly with administrators, sources say. (The DGA ratified a brand new contract with the AMPTP in June, permitting administrators to proceed their dealmaking with studios.)
All the Mattel initiatives could possibly be franchise starters, making growth an particularly daunting course of. Barbie hopscotched between a number of studios, with a number of filmmakers and scripts throwing in the towel earlier than Robbie boarded as a producer and turbocharged the undertaking by bringing in Gerwig.
Different properties have had a equally rocky journey. Blumhouse was beforehand hooked up to a Magic 8 Ball film earlier than exiting the undertaking after makes an attempt at growth, whereas Masters of the Universe bounced from Sony to Netflix. The streamer not too long ago dropped the undertaking after reportedly spending $30 million on growth prices.
As for onscreen expertise, there may be nonetheless a wait-and-see angle about future Mattel initiatives. “The bar is simply increased due to the potential cheese issue,” says one prime expertise rep on the calculus of placing shoppers into toy movies. With Abrams, Dunham and Daniel Kaluuya (Barney) hooked up, the caliber of filmmaking expertise Mattel is enlisting is a promising, whereas a number of insiders lauded the corporate’s willingness to have each its No. 1 toy and its company model function the butt of jokes in Barbie.
“Everybody goes in with the very best of intentions however then [IP] holders go, ‘No we will’t say that about our model!’” says one exec who has labored with main manufacturers beforehand on potential initiatives. “They villainized the CEO of Mattel and the results of [Barbie] is everybody loves Mattel.”
In fact, Hollywood betting on the field workplace potential of toys and main manufacturers in nothing new — Transformers and Lego proved profitable whereas others have stumbled like G.I. Joe. A number of years in the past, a movie was being pitched based mostly on the M&Ms — the sweet’s commercials have lengthy featured CGI anthropomorphized spokescandies. The hope was to connect Will Arnett and expertise of the like, in accordance with a supply.
And $1 billion in field workplace receipts is tough to disregard, particularly throughout a 12 months the place certain bets have been floundering on the movie show. Desperation can result in questionable decision-making, says the producer with toy-to-film expertise, “Loads of these different motion pictures are going to come back from executives making an attempt to fill out launch calendars.”
