Sharon Stone discusses her failed Barbie pitch within the ’90s, saying that executives “didn’t suppose Barbie needs to be highly effective.”
Barbie was simply the largest film of the 12 months; not solely producing $1.4 billion worldwide however dominating popular culture discourse for months on finish. It was a becoming conclusion for a venture that had spent many years in improvement hell, with Sharon Stone even pitching a Barbie film manner again within the ’90s.
Whereas talking on Dana Carvey and David Spade’s Fly On The Wall podcast, Sharon Stone spilled a number of extra particulars on her failed Barbie pitch. “I went to the studio to attempt to make Barbie within the Nineties with a producer, a buddy of mine, and I had the then-CEO of Mattel on my facet,” Stone mentioned. “We bought thrown out of the studio. They had been like, ‘Why would you are taking this American icon and attempt to destroy it? What’s flawed with you?’ I bought a lecture and an escort to the door.“
Stone went on to element the opening scene of her Barbie film and defined that studio executives took difficulty with it, believing that Barbie shouldn’t be seen as highly effective. “We had it so the opening scene could be Barbie pulling as much as Mattel in her Barbie automotive and secret service come out and their ft are as large because the automotive,” Stone mentioned. “They escort her into Mattel and all people falls apart as a result of she’s a very powerful member of Mattel. All the massive persons are chasing her round and kissing her ass as a result of she’s the queen of Mattel and it’s in regards to the energy of being Barbie and what Barbie may do on this planet as a result of she’s so highly effective. However they didn’t suppose Barbie needs to be highly effective.“
Given the large success of Barbie, it’s solely pure that the studio would need a sequel, however Margot Robbie stays skeptical. “Its humorous, that knee-jerk response nowadays for everybody to right away ask a couple of sequel,” Robbie mentioned earlier this 12 months. “I don’t suppose it was like that 20 years in the past. This wasn’t designed to be a trilogy.” Not all films want sequels, however the probability of one other billion-dollar payday can be laborious for the studio to withstand.
Margot Robbie truly predicted that Barbie would gross $1 billion when she first pitched the venture, though on the time she thought she had oversold it. “I feel my pitch within the green-light assembly was the studios have prospered a lot after they’re courageous sufficient to pair a giant concept with a visionary director,” Robbie mentioned. “After which I gave a collection of examples like, ‘dinosaurs and [Steven] Spielberg,’ that and that, that and that – just about naming something that’s been unbelievable and made a ton of cash for the studios over time. And I used to be like, ‘And now you’ve bought Barbie and Greta Gerwig.’ And I feel I advised them that it’d make a billion {dollars}, which possibly I used to be overselling, however we had a film to make, okay?!“
