Considering the phenomenon that was Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, it’s only a matter of time before its success is sought to be replicated somehow. And when the Mattel-produced blockbuster had just been out for one week last summer, it was announced that Lena Dunham was writing and directing a Polly Pocket movie with Lily Collins as the star. A year later, we have an update from Dunham on her project, and as it turns out, the Girls filmmaker has already moved on from Polly Pocket playtime.
While promoting her latest movie, Treasure, Lena Dunham bluntly told The New Yorker she’s out on Polly Pocket by her own accord. In her words:
I’m going to tell you something here that I haven’t told anyone: I’m not going to make the Polly Pocket movie. I wrote a script, and I was working on it for three years. But I remember someone once said to me about Nancy Meyers: the thing that’s the most amazing about her is that the movie she makes or the movie she would be making with or without a studio, with or without notes—that somehow her taste manages to intersect perfectly with what the world wants. What a fucking gift that is. And Nora Ephron, too, who was such a mentor to me, but always said, ‘Go be weird. Don’t kowtow to anyone.’
When the Polly Pocket movie was spoken of last July, the president of Mattel Films, Robbie Brenner, called Lena Dunham’s script “great” and said that they had an “incredible collaboration.” She also described the Girls creator as someone who "rolls up her sleeves and really likes to roll around in notes and listen”. Apparently, the filmmaker and Mattel ended up disagreeing on something. As Dunham continued:
And I think Greta [Gerwig] managed this incredible feat [with ‘Barbie’], which was to make this thing that was literally candy to so many different kinds of people and was perfectly and divinely Greta. And I just—I felt like, unless I can do it that way, I’m not going to do it. I don’t think I have that in me. I feel like the next movie I make needs to feel like a movie that I absolutely have to make. No one but me could make it. And I did think other people could make ‘Polly Pocket.’
Stream Greta Gerwig's Barbie with a Max subscription or rent/buy on Amazon.
Dunham has been taking cues from other respected female directors who have really changed the game with their films.
Greta Gerwig in particular showed that a powerful movie could be made about a very commercial doll that doesn’t feel like it was made to sell toys. The writer/director even had the chance to take jabs at Mattel in Barbie, and she was encouraged to do so by the Mattel CEO who said he gave the filmmaker “full creative freedom because she deserves it.”
In turn, Barbie was the highest-grossing movie of last year with nearly $1.5 billion at the worldwide box office. It also was nominated for eight Oscars (winning one for Billie Eilish’s viral song).
When it comes to the development of Dunham’s Polly Pocket movie, it sounds like she hit a wall when it came to that creative freedom she craved. But hey, the Barbie movie went through a few cooks in the kitchen (including Amy Schumer and Anne Hathaway once tapped for the main role) before it became such a big hit!
While Dunham’s update means the Polly Pocket movie is back to the drawing board, the filmmaker does have a new show among Netflix's new releases. She created a rom-com series called Too Much starring Megan Stalter and Will Sharpe which is expected to premiere later this year.
