Lena Dunham Making Ridiculous Doll Movie Because Barbie Is So Popular
Lena Dunham will be directing a Polly Pocket movie.
Barbie was a breath of fresh air for Hollywood. It was an intelligent, funny, and subversive film that is unique among licensed properties. Audiences flocked to theaters to see something that stood out from the norm, so of course the lesson Mattel learned was that they need to churn out more movies just like it. With that, Collider reports that a Lena Dunham-directed Polly Pocket movie is on the way.
Lena Dunham will direct a Polly Pocket movie which is now in development.
Back in the 1990s, Polly Pocket toys were one of the biggest rivals to Barbie dolls. Made by a company called Bluebird, toys, the miniature-sized playsets became one of the best-selling toys for young girls before getting acquired by Mattel. Mattel completely redesigned the brand — a strategy that failed, leading to the toys getting discontinued in 2012.
Mattel eventually re-launched the brand in 2018, with playsets that were closer to the original Polly Pocket toys. The toys made a comeback, but they never reclaimed the cultural status they had in the 90s. Nevertheless, Mattel apparently believes that tapping Lena Dunham to direct a Polly Pocket movie will lead to similar success as Barbie.
Along with having Lena Dunham in the director’s seat, Mattel has announced that The Mortal Instruments actress Lily Collins will star in the film. Robbie Brenner, who produced Barbie and The Dallas Buyer’s Club, is set to produce the new Polly Pocket film.
Along with Lena Dunham in the director’s chair, Lily Collins will star in the Polly Pocket movie
The choice of Lena Dunham to direct seems to mirror the choice of putting Greta Gerwig into the director’s chair for Barbie. Both are women who have written and directed a few well-done, smaller-scale movies but have never been in charge of something with a large budget.
This allows them to offer a fresh perspective to Hollywood at a time when audiences are growing tired of seeing heroes unite to fight a bad guy and save the world.
However, there’s a reason to be skeptical about how successful Lena Dunham’s Polly Pocket movie will be. Barbie, after all, has been a cultural icon since 1959, while Polly Pocket was only intermittently popular in the 90s, with a rebound over the last five years. It’ll be harder to draw in audiences based on brand alone, no matter how good of a movie Dunham makes.
The situation brings to mind the aftermath of The Lego Movie, which was unexpectedly popular when it came out in 2014. That same year, the lesser-known brand Playmobil announced that they would create their own animated film, Playmobil: The Movie — clearly hoping to replicate The Lego Movie‘s success. The movie was both a critical and commercial failure.
It’s possible that the main reason Playmobil: The Movie failed is simply because it was bad. If that’s the case, Lena Dunham might make a successful movie out of Polly Pocket if she creates a high-quality film. If she brings the creativity found in her film Catherine Called Birdy, audiences might just give the movie a chance.
However, it can be argued that Mattel caught lightning in a bottle with Barbie, and now they’re trying to do it again with a smaller, dustier bottle that they’d kept in the back of their cabinet for a long time. Lena Dunham might be able to pull it off, but we’ll have to wait until Polly Pocket comes out to be sure.
