A live-action Barbie movie starring and produced by Margot Robbie is in active development, but prior to The Suicide Squad star deciding to go plastic, there were two other iterations in the works around Hollywood. At one point, Anne Hathaway was going to star in another version, and before that, Amy Schumer was heavily involved in bringing the famous doll to the big screen. Years later, the comedian is sharing why she really dropped the project.
When news broke that Amy Schumer was not going to be in the Barbie movie back in 2017, the Trainwreck actress cited “scheduling conflicts,” but that was not the real reason she dropped it. As Schumer explained:
They definitely didn’t want to do it the way I wanted to do it, the only way I was interested in doing it.
Amy Schumer’s Barbie, which was being written by her sister and frequent collaborator Kim Caramele, it would be a fish-out-of-water comedy where Schumer’s character would be kicked out of Barbieland for not adhering to perfect Barbie standards. However, as the actress has now told The Hollywood Reporter, there were creative conflicts between her vision and Sony.
Schumer claimed that her Barbie was written as an “ambitious inventor,” but the studio asked that the invention be a high heel made of Jell-O, which she was not on board with. The actress continued:
The idea that that’s just what every woman must want, right there, I should have gone, ‘You’ve got the wrong gal.’
Per the interview, Amy Schumer said she was even sent a pair of Manolo Blahniks shoes in anticipation of the project. Barbie was then scrapped and has since come into the hands of Margot Robbie, who has brought on Ladybird and Little Women writer/director Greta Gerwig to helm the project. Gerwig is writing the script with her partner and Marriage Story filmmaker Noah Baumbach.
Amy Schumer’s decision to quit Barbie reportedly led to the comedian’s decision to part with her longtime representatives due to feeling like she was “disappointing my team by not being Barbie.” She signed with another team and pursued other opportunities, such as her upcoming Hulu series, Life & Beth.
No plot details for the current Barbie movie have been disclosed, but alongside Margot Robbie playing Barbie, Ryan Gosling will play Ken, and Shang-Chi’s Simu Liu is also among the cast that will include Kate McKinnon and America Ferrera. The movie is still in pre-production, but considering all the recent casting information, it's likely the movie will get rolling in the near future.
Alongside Amy Schumer’s streaming series hitting Hulu on March 18, she’ll be a co-host at the 2022 Oscars, alongside Regina Hall and Wanda Sykes, airing on ABC on Sunday, March 27.
