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Actress Stone
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Markus Schreiber / AP
It should happen that an idea is good, but the world is not yet ready. Actress Sharon Stone said in a podcast that she wanted to make a film about the Barbie doll back in the 1990s. What became the most successful film of the year in 2023, directed by Greta Gerwig and starring Margot Robbie, probably didn't fit into the zeitgeist at the time, at least in that of the studios.
"I went to the studio with a producer, a friend of mine, to try to make Barbie, and I had the then CEO of Mattel on my side," she says in the interview on the "Fly on the Wall" podcast. »We were kicked out of the studio. They said, 'Why are you taking this American icon and trying to destroy it? What’s wrong with you?’ They lectured me and then escorted me to the door.”
The Queen of Mattell
Stone explains what the opening scene was supposed to look like: Barbie drives up to the Mattel headquarters in her Barbie car. They are picked up by bodyguards whose shoes are as big as the car. Everyone is huge, Barbie is small, but obviously the most powerful woman at Mattell, everyone there is at her feet. "She's the queen of Mattel, and it's about the power of Barbie and what Barbie can do in the world because she's so powerful," is how Stone describes her idea for the script at the time. But: "The studio bosses didn't want a powerful Barbie," says Stone.
When asked whether she had called the people who let her idea fall through after the success of "Barbie," Stone said: They were no longer in their positions. And if they were still alive, they would definitely be angry.
On January 16th, Sharon Stone had already given hints about her rejection at the time. Under the post containing the acceptance speech from America Ferrera, who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Barbie, Stone commented: "I was laughed at when I pitched the idea of a Barbie movie to a studio. No matter how far we have come, thank you women for your courage and perseverance.«
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