Lena Dunham's Polly Pocket movie isn't even Mattel's weirdest post-Barbie project

Meanwhile, Daniel Kaluuya's Barney movie is described as "more of like a Being John Malkovich or an Adaptation"

By William Hughes | July 27, 2023 | 3:04am

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Lena Dunham's Polly Pocket movie isn't even Mattel's weirdest post-Barbie project

Polly Pocket Photo: David Paul Morris

It must be profoundly weird, in this moment, to be an executive at toy company Mattel. Like dogs who’ve actually managed to catch the proverbial car, the company—which has long dreamed of leveraging its various iconic brands into success at the box office—finds itself in possession of the top-rated, best-performing movie in the country, as Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie’s take on Barbie continues to dominate the cultural conversation. It’s the kind of thing that can drive an executive to say some very strange things—like asserting, with an apparently straight face, that the script for the long-in-the-works Polly Pocket movie (written by Lena Dunham) is “great.”

And, to be clear, it’s not like Polly Pocket is some spur-of-the-moment thing that Mattel just reached for after Barbie started making money: The company has been planning this wide-ranging push into theaters for years, having tapped Dunham to write and direct a film about pocket-sized women way back in 2021. (Lily Collins was, and is, attached to star, possibly in an effort to short-circuit fully half the brains on the internet by bringing Lena Dunham and Emily In Paris into close proximity.) The “great” quote comes from a conversation Variety recently conducted with Mattel Films’ Robbie Brenner about a whole slate of projects. It’s also not even remotely the oddest thing Brenner said during this conversation, in which she also gave quick check-ins on Daniel Kaluuya’s big purple Barney movie (“more of like a Being John Malkovich or an Adaptation”), J.J. Abrams’ Hot Wheels (“real emotion and real stakes to it”), the Vin Diesel-starring Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots (“Vin is excited”), and, of course, the Magic 8-Ball movie. (“Probably…a PG-13 thriller,” Brenner stated; tragically, she somehow failed to give a quote about the studios’ actual, we-shit-you-not, plans for an UNO movie.)

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And, honestly, amidst all that, Lena Dunham writing and directing a Polly Pocket movie feels positively quaint. Brenner was nevertheless effusive about the project, saying, “It’s been an amazing collaboration. Lena is so collaborative and rolls up her sleeves and really likes to roll around in notes and listen. She’s incredible. Lily is so smart and so specific and so productorial. It’s just been an incredible collaboration, so we are thrilled about it. Hopefully, we’ll be making that at some point in the future.” (We think “productorial” means “producer-like” in this capacity, but it’s nevertheless funny to imagine “product-like” being a major selling point, given Mattel’s current push.)