Barbie's Success Is Giving Studios the Wrong Idea

Barbie is a cultural phenomenon. But studios don't understand the recipe that made it that.

A month after its release, it's clear that Barbie has become an outright cultural phenomenon. While everyone expected it to be a hit, it's hard to believe anyone was anticipating the degree; in the last week, it passed 2008's The Dark Knight as Warner Bros.' all-time highest-grossing film domestically (unadjusted for inflation).

In a year in which blockbusters have been met with greatly varying degrees of success, the film industry absolutely needed a hit of this kind. But already, it's evident that studios are learning the wrong lessons from Barbie; with the recent news that a Hot Wheels movie has been greenlit, it seems as though executives believe movies about toys are the next big trend. But this ignores all the significant factors that helped shape Barbie's cultural impact, and if studios don't remember the poor luck they've had in the past adapting toys to the big screen, they run the risk of repeating past mistakes.

For years, making movies about toys and action figures almost always spelled a recipe for disaster. Works such as the 2000 Dungeons and Dragons, 2012's Battleship, and 1987's Masters of the Universe were critical and financial bombs. While Michael Bay's Transformers franchise was financially lucrative for years, they were almost always critically reviled. Even the one minor early success, 1985's Clue, still only has a cult following to this day.

This all changed in 2014 with The LEGO Movie. Almost no one expected anything from it, but against all odds, it was one of the best-reviewed films of 2014 and grossed nearly half a billion worldwide. Immediately, Warner Bros. greenlit a sequel and several spinoffs, and at the time, it seemed like a logical next step. The LEGO universe was filled with seemingly endless possibilities, and people were excited to see the universe explored even further.

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Initially, this investment paid off; the first spinoff, 2017's The LEGO Batman Movie, was another big critical and financial hit. But things quickly went south. The LEGO Ninjago Movie released just seven months later, received mixed reviews for not adding anything new to the now-familiar formula, and the box office intake was much smaller as well. And while The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part, released in 2019, was better received by critics, it was another significant box office disappointment.

Warner Bros. quietly canceled the other planned spinoffs and sold the franchise rights to Universal. Obviously, the oversaturation of the LEGO brand in a short period of time helped lead to the franchise's downfall. But Warner Bros. had forgotten the subversive spark that made the original installment such a classic and transcended the brand name. While all the spinoffs were enjoyable to varying degrees, it's clear that the increasing law of new surprises had turned the LEGO franchise from something exciting and original into just another recognizable IP.

In theory, the recipe for Barbie's phenomenal success looks obvious. When it was first conceived in the 2010s, almost everyone rolled their eyes at the concept of a feature-length Barbie movie. Only in 2021, when indie darling filmmaker Greta Gerwig signed on to direct, did curiosity about the project start to build. Said curiosity only kept growing with each new casting announcement; from Margot Robbie to Ryan Gosling, to America Ferrera, to Kate McKinnon, it was clear Gerwig was filling her film with the biggest talent in the industry she could find.

And upon its release last month, much like recent female-driven blockbusters Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel, Barbie performed nearly double its box office projections in addition to rave reviews. And more importantly, it was unmistakably the work of an auteur; this was Greta Gerwig's third film out of three that delicately explored a young woman coming into her own identity in a world determined to put a label on her. And with the help of immaculate production and costume design, it was clear that this was not a corporate product but the vision of a gifted director brought to fruition.

And while this quality spoke so strongly to people, studios are already starting to learn the wrong lessons. As has been the case in the past, executives are always focused on "what" the next big trend is and not "why" a film becomes a hit; as proven by Warner Bros.' recent greenlight of a Hot Wheels movie, they are less concerned with the factors that made Barbie a great film and instead believe the key to success is adapting more toy properties to the big screen.

Related: Why Barbie is One of the Most Important and Progressive Movies of All Time

As proven by the rise and fall of the LEGO franchise, adapting toys to the big screen isn't automatically the key to success. People didn't respond to Barbie because it was a recognizable IP; they responded to it because it was a subversive work born from a creative talent that was fully realized and beautifully executed. And if Hollywood doesn't realize why Barbie was a smash hit and instead focuses on trying to replicate its success with another similar property, they risk diluting the very thing Gerwig subverted and instead becoming yet another recognizable IP.

Oppenheimer's breakout success illustrated further evidence of what studios should be doing, as it was another unmistakably director-driven project and unconcerned with the lowest common denominator. Post-pandemic, studios are understandably looking for the surest path to breakout box office hits, but what both Barbie and Oppenheimer prove is that the key may be for executives to trust their filmmakers to bring their visions to life, and have confidence that if their works deliver, audiences will show up.