In the wake of Greta Gerwig’s successful adaptation of the Mattel doll, Sharon Stone has been chatting about her rejected attempt to get a Barbie film made.
Judging by Barbie's incredible success last year, it’s pretty clear that this was a film that the world was waiting for. Sure, there might have been a vocal minority who tried (and failed) to shout it down but as the film rocketed its way to be the most commercially successful film of the year it was abundantly clear that audiences had been waiting for a movie like Barbie.
Go back a few decades though, and Hollywood was a very different place (as was the wider world, admittedly).
Sharon Stone has been talking to the Fly On The Wall podcast about trying to get a Barbie movie made back in the 90s and it didn’t go well. “I went to the studio to try and make Barbie in the 1990s with a producer, a friend of mine, and I had the then-CEO of Mattel on my side,” recalls Stone. “We got thrown out of the studio … They were like, ‘why would you take this American icon and try to destroy it? What is wrong with you?’ I got a lecture and an escort to the door.”
Sharon Stone has mentioned her Barbie pitch rejection before, but this time she would go on to spill the tea a little more, offering a description of the film’s proposed first scene and the reaction it got.
Says Stone: “We had it so the opening scene would be Barbie pulling up to Mattel in her Barbie car and secret service come out and their feet are as big as the car. They escort her into Mattel and everybody falls aside because she’s the most important member of Mattel. All the big people are chasing her around and kissing her ass because she’s the queen of Mattel and it’s about the power of being Barbie and what Barbie could do in the world because she’s so powerful. But they didn’t think Barbie should be powerful.”
For whatever reason, Hollywood studios seemingly weren’t ready though, and there would be several more abortive attempts to get a Barbie movie off the ground (featuring Amy Schumer and Anne Hathaway respectively) before Margot Robbie would embody the role to such great success.
Unfortunately for Sharon Stone, she was just too far ahead of her time. We imagine that there won’t be any problems greenlighting a Barbie movie next time though, right?
