The Barbie purveyors at Mattel Films appear to be reshuffling the deck with their feature based on the card game Uno.
According to Alex Barasch of the New Yorker, Marcy Kelly—described as "Mattel’s de-facto screenwriter and punch-up artist"—set her first draft "in Atlanta's hip-hop scene."
If that sounds familiar, in early 2021 Lil Yachty was linked to an Uno movie reported to revolve around ATL rap and a heist. The "Poland" artist was set to produce "with an eye to star," the Hollywood Reporter shared at the time. Yachty went so far as to issue a statement saying that turning the game he loves "into a movie based on the Atlanta hip-hop scene I came out of is really special. It hits close to home for me.”
This month's New Yorker piece says the Uno "script [Kelly] emerged with wasn’t quite what Mattel had had in mind." After her "'fuck'-heavy" draft was flagged by an executive, Kelly returned with a revised version featuring "one, well-placed, PG-13 'fuck.'" (Movies are automatically elevated to an R-rating if the word is used more than once.)
Evidently Mattel could not find a way in on the plot in question. And while a "one-day writers’ room took another run at a concept," it's unclear what's next for Uno, or if Lil Yachty is still attached.
Mattel has given considerable creative freedom to the writers working on its 45 films currently in development. One of which is a Barney film starring Daniel Kaluuya, which will be geared towards adults in "A24-type" fashion, exploring "some of the trials and tribulations of being 30-something" and growing up with the purple dinosaur.
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Under CEO Ynon Kreiz, Mattel has addressed slumping sales by using its seemingly infinite catalog for the big screen. The recently-formed Mattel Films presented an intriguing pitch: actors, directors, and writers are allowed to play with any of the IP, as long as a studio is willing to finance the movie.
Aside from Kaluuya, Vin Diesel (Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots), Tom Hanks (Major Matt Mason), and J.J. Abrams are among the notable names attached to Mattel projects in the works. The NYer mentions seeing a video from Abrams where he discusses the difficulty of finding a worthwhile story for a live-action Hot Wheels film before coming up with a plot that is somehow "emotional and grounded and gritty."
Even though Mattel is allowing these people to play in the sandbox, there is still a bit of parental oversight, as Greta Gerwig found out while making Barbie. Mattel and Warner Bros. wanted a look at the initial script she co-wrote with Noah Baumbach, but Gerwig declined.
Gerwig and Baumbach's agent Jeremy Barber, who is close with Mattel Films head Robbie Brenner, was baffled by the request. "Are you crazy?” Barber told Brenner. “You should’ve come into this office and thanked me when Greta and Noah showed up to write a fucking Barbie movie!”
Gerwig received the green light to move forward with Barbie, along with a $100 million budget, after presenting "executives with a poem in the style of the Apostles’ Creed."
