This violent Barbie scene shocked Mattel

❘ Updated: 2023-11-06T17:24:34

Warner Bros.

The Barbie movie would always have to get the approval of Mattel, but one scene created some friction between executives and Greta Gerwig.

The now-iconic Barbie film followed the titular doll, played by Margot Robbie, as she ventured out into the real world. While the blonde figure obviously stole the spotlight, Ken was also there.

As we state in our five-star review of the movie, “Barbie is an enigma of a movie. It is a children’s film made for adults, done in a thoughtful and loving way. It’s comforting, but never pandering. Like finding one of your old dolls in a drawer at your parent’s house, Barbie manages to take a stereotypical object we’re all familiar with, and make it personally existential.”

The movie took to world by storm this summer, being both a critical and commercial success. But while Barbie’s company Mattel was mostly on board for Greta Gerwig’s new take on the character, there were some scenes they had some issues with.

Mattel didn’t want to get shot in Barbie

In an interview with Variety, Barbie movie creators Gerwig and Noah Baumbach spoke about a certain scene in which a Mattel Executive gets shot… by a toy arrow.

As Baumbach explained: “There was a note when we first turned the script it. On page 111: ‘Does a Mattel executive have to be shot?’ At the time we were like, that should just be on the ad!”

Gerwig added: “But all the notes had a question mark at the end. It wasn’t like, ‘This has to happen.’ It was more, ‘But does he have to be?’ [Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz] really did give us a tremendous amount of trust and freedom. There was a real, ‘If you say this is right, then let’s go.'”

This scene takes place around the epic “I’m Just Ken” sequence, which you can watch more of below:

One time Mattel wasn’t so supportive, in that Mattel COO Richard Dickson flew to the movie’s set to yell at them for an “off-brand” scene, but he relented once Gerwig and Margot performed a re-enactment.

There are quite a few moments within the Barbie movie that could have been deemed “off-brand”; its dirty jokes, blatant tackling of sexism, and the issues within the Mattel company itself. However, the freedom Mattel gave Gerwig has paid off, with Barbie having since made $1.4 billion.

Check out our other Barbie coverage below: