Come on, Barbie, let’s go party! A trailer for the highly-anticipated Barbie movie has been released, featuring the first footage of Margot Robbie as the famous fashion doll. This short teaser shows Robbie as the original Barbie, winking at a group of young girls and a shinier, newer model of the doll. “Since the beginning of time, since the first little girl ever existed, there have been dolls, but the dolls were always and forever. Baby dolls until…” Helen Mirren narrates the preview, which introduces the film as an adventure set after Barbie disrupts the tradition of girls playing with dolls and also highlights Ryan Gosling as Ken and Simu Liu. Greta Gerwig directs Robbie in a satirical spoof of the 1959 doll.
“People immediately have an idea of, ‘Oh, Margot is playing Barbie, I know what that is,’ but our goal is to be like, ‘Whatever you’re thinking, we’re going to give you something totally different – the thing you didn’t know you wanted,’” Robbie told the Hollywood Reporter. She added that she hoped the film will “provoke a thoughtful conversation.” The all-star cast includes Ryan Gosling as Ken, Will Ferrell, Issa Rae, Kate McKinnon, Simu Liu, Michael Cera, America Ferrera, Ncuti Gatwa, Emerald Fennell, Rhea Perlman, and Kingsley Ben-Adir. According to Ferrell, who plays a Mattel CEO, the film is “the ultimate example of high art and low art” and “an amazing comment on male patriarchy and women in society.”
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After being in the works with Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody in 2015, Barbie was moved to Amy Schumer in 2016, who would star and co-write the film. In 2017, she dropped out, saying, “They definitely didn’t want to do it the way I wanted to do it, the only way I was interested in doing it.” Before Robbie, Anne Hathaway was set to star in the film, which fell through. When the Suicide Squad star got the part, she asked to bring Gerwig on board. Another Mattel adaptation is planned to follow, a take on Polly Pocket directed and written by Lena Dunham with Lily Collins. As Dunham confirmed in October, she is still writing the script. Masters of the Universe and Hot Wheels are also in development for Mattel. This month, Robbie will star in Babylon, co-starring Brad Pitt, and she will next appear in Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City alongside Tom Hanks, Scarlett Johansson, and Tilda Swinton. Barbie will hit theaters in July 2023.
