Daniel Kaluuya's Barney Movie Will Lean Into Millennial Angst
Could Greta Gerwig's "Barbie" end up being the launch pad for a series of genuinely creative-driven studio films based on, of all things, Mattel properties? The idea's not quite as inherently ludicrous as it sounds. Ron Burgundy himself, Will Ferrell, has described Gerwig's film (in which he co-stars as Mattel's fictional CEO, in case there was any question about the tone "Barbie" is aiming for) as "the ultimate example of high art and low art." Should that prove to be accurate, then Gerwig's "Barbie" might yet deserve to proclaim itself the long-awaited successor to "The LEGO Movie."
Then there's the "dark" Barney the Dinosaur movie that "Get Out" and "Nope" star Daniel Kaluuya is producing for Mattel. Mind you, the actual notion of a "dark" film about the beloved magical purple toy tyrannosaurus rex sounds like a "Saturday Night Live" skit in the vein of the "Joker" parody "Grouch." Nevertheless, Mattel's "gritty" Barney movie is a very real thing, and the more we learn about it, the more it starts to seem like another potential marriage of "high art and low art" in the same vein as "Barbie."
Everything Barney all at once
When interviewed for a profile by The New Yorker (via Variety), Mattel Films executive Kevin McKeon called the Barney film "surrealistic" and compared it to (not kidding) the films of "Being John Malkovich" and "Adaptation" writer-director duo Charlie Kaufman and Spike Jonze. Weirdly enough, that out-of-left-field comparison began to make more sense as McKeon kept talking:
"We're leaning into the Millennial angst of the property rather than fine-tuning this for kids. It's really a play for adults. Not that it's R-rated, but it'll focus on some of the trials and tribulations of being 30-something, growing up with Barney — just the level of disenchantment within the generation."
The way McKeon described it, the Barney film sounds like a decidedly metamodern take on its titular character, à la "Barbie" and both Kaufman and Jonze's most recent work. That would also bring it in line with contemporary A24 films like "Everything Everywhere All at Once" and "Marcel the Shell with Shoes On," which explicitly examine "Millennial angst" and "disenchantment" through a fantastical yet emotionally-grounded lens. McKeon even referred to the Barney film as an "A24-type," adding, "It would be so daring of us, and really underscore that we're here to make art."
Look, I get that, on some level, it's bizarre to even be talking about films like "Barbie" and "Barney the Dinosaur" this way, especially since we've yet to see either one of them. The fact of the matter is, though, we're in a strange place where filmmakers often have to smuggle their original ideas and interests into franchises and IP adaptations to get their art made at all. So if Mattel is really serious about letting people like Greta Gerwig and Daniel Kaluuya scribble outside the lines on these films, then I'm all for it! Now, when are we getting Ari Aster's Magic 8-Ball movie?