Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach received away with plenty of bite-the-hand humor in direction of Mattel of their script for the blockbuster “Barbie” film. But the corporate nonetheless had plenty of questions in regards to the script for their satirical comedy — together with one scene the place an exec of the corporate will get shot (non-lethally, after all).
Gerwig and Baumbach spoke about their course of writing the script for the “Barbie” movie throughout a Thursday Q&A with “Angels in America” playwright Tony Kushner on the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York City. At the Q&A, the 2 spoke in regards to the notes they acquired throughout their first submitted draft of the script. One notice they acquired comes within the movie’s last act, the place the Kens of Barbieland compete in a seaside battle. During the chaos, Will Ferrell’s fictional Mattel CEO arrives together with his mob of male executives, one in every of which will get shot with a faux arrow within the fray.
“There was a note when we first turned the script [in],” Baumbach stated throughout the Q&A (through Variety). “On web page 111: ‘Does a Mattel executive have to be shot?’ At the time we have been like, that ought to simply be on the advert!’
Despite this, Gerwig stated they didn’t need to combat Mattel to maintain the scene in. “All the notes had a question mark at the end,” she instructed Kushner. “It wasn’t like, ‘This has to happen.’ It was more, ‘But does he have to be?’”
She additional added that the corporate’s CEO Ynon Kreiz “really did give us a tremendous amount of trust and freedom. There was a real, ‘If you say this is right, then let’s go.’”
This isn’t the primary time Gerwig has revealed a quibble that Mattel initially had with the story of the $1.4 billion blockbuster movie. In an interview with Time Magazine previous to the movie’s Summer premiere, Gerwig recounted a narrative the place the corporate’s COO and President Richard Dickson flew to the movie’s London set in an effort to protest a scene the place teenage Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt) calls Barbie a fascist. Dickson believed the scene was “off-brand” for the corporate, however was satisfied to maintain it after Gerwig and star Margot Robbie acted it out for him on set.
Gerwig additionally shot down another recommendations executives had for the film. In an interview with Australian discuss present “The Project,” she revealed executives requested if she would use CGI to artificially arch Robbie’s feet to resemble these of a Barbie doll, an thought she shortly nixed.
“There was a big discussion in the beginning,” Gerwig stated. “Everyone said, ‘Are you going to CGI all the feet?’ And I thought, ‘Oh god, no! That’s terrifying! That’s a nightmare.’ Also Margot has the nicest feet. She has these beautiful dancer feet. She should just hang on to that bar and do it just like this.”
“Barbie,” starring Robbie and Ryan Gosling, is now available to rent on VOD platforms.
