Screenwriters Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach of “Barbie” lately spoke with Tony Kushner of “Angels in America” and “Lincoln” about the Warner Bros. unprecedented blockbuster. During their discussion, they disclosed one of the first instructions Mattel gave them regarding the script: “Please don’t have the Mattel exec stand-in characters be shot.”
The rival Ken characters engage in a full-fledged beach fight in the third act of “Barbie.” At this point, Will Ferrell—who is assuming the role of the fictionalized CEO of Mattel—and his retinue of unnamed male Mattel executives arrive in Barbieland. During the subsequent, bloodless chaos, one of these executives is shot with a phony arrow at a particular moment.
Baumbach informed Kusher, “There was a note when we first turned the script it,” Baumbach told Kusher” “‘ Does a Mattel executive have to be shot?’ is asked on page 111. At the time we were like, that should just be on the ad!’ “But all the notes had a question mark at the end,” Gerwig continued, emphasizing that Mattel had granted them the latitude to parody the business as they saw appropriate. “It wasn’t like, ‘This has to happen.’ It was more, ‘But does he have to be?’” Ynon Kreiz, the CEO of Mattel, “really did give us a tremendous amount of trust and freedom,” according to Gerwig. “If you say this is right, then let’s go.”
That’s not to suggest that Mattel was always at ease with the ideas Gerwig and Baumbach had for the movie. During the summer press tour for the movie, it was disclosed that Richard Dickson, the chief operating officer and president of Mattel, had flown to the London location for the film at a certain point to dispute with lead actress Margot Robbie and director Gerwig over a scene he felt was not appropriate for the organization. The scene showed Barbie being dismembered and called a fascist by the teenage girl Sasha. Dickson was given a live performance of the moment on set by Gerwig and Robbie, which persuaded him to keep it in the movie.
“When you look on the page, the nuance isn’t there, the delivery isn’t there,” Robbie told Time magazine. The scene where Barbie, a newcomer to the real world, approaches an elderly woman (Ann Roth) on a bench and tells her she’s beautiful is another that studio executives first intended to leave out. Rolling Stone was told by Gerwig, “I love that scene so much. And the older woman on the bench is the costume designer Ann Roth. She’s a legend. It’s a cul-de-sac of a moment, in a way — it doesn’t lead anywhere. And in early cuts, looking at the movie, it was suggested, ‘Well, you could cut it. And actually, the story would move on just the same.’ And I said, ‘If I cut the scene, I don’t know what this movie is about.’”
She added, “That’s how I saw it. To me, this is the heart of the movie. The way Margot plays that moment is so gentle and so unforced. There’s the more outrageous elements in the movie that people say, ‘Oh, my God, I can’t believe Mattel let you do this,’ or, ‘I can’t believe Warner Bros. let you do this.’ But to me, the part that I can’t believe that is still in the movie is this little cul-de-sac that doesn’t lead anywhere — except for, it’s the heart of the movie.”