Every day I check on movie news, and every day I’m met with yet another toy-turned-movie marketing ploy in the making. Monster Trucks? Check. Monopoly? Check again. Troll Dolls? And one more check. I’m not certain who to blame for this. I’d like to lay it at the door of Michael Bay and his absurdly bad, absurdly successful Transformers franchise, but these kinds of toy-based films really have been coming at us for years. Indeed, we actually have one more to add to the pile, as Sony and Mattel have announced their intention to make a live-action Barbie movie.
Production on the live-action Barbie movie is set to begin at the end of this year and it’s just the first installment in a planned franchise featuring the top-heavy, anatomically incorrect toy. Although she’s been everything from a race-car driver to a surgeon over the years, in this film Barbie will be teamed with a bureaucrat looking for an assistant in an unlikely buddy comedy. I wish I was making this up, but I’m not.
It is not as though Barbie has been absent from the silver screen over the years. Since 1987 she’s featured in direct-to-video/DVD adventures, the latest of which was released in March of this year. She’s also appeared in such films as Pixar’s Toy Story franchise, alongside her boyfriend Ken. But I do not think that Barbs has ever actually been featured in a live-action film of her own, much less one that we presume will actually pop up in cinemas worldwide.
While I’m rather skeptical about this turn of events for Barbie, there is of course the distant possibility that the film will actually be watchable. It will represent the second collaboration between Sony and toy giant Mattel, who also have plans to make Masters of the Universe, based on the popular He-Man action figures. If both of these franchises work out, perhaps we’ll have Barbie meeting He-Man before 2020. Life in plastic is indeed fantastic.
We’ll keep an eye on developments in the Barbie world, and let you know more details about the film as they come up.
