First “Barbie” Trailer Reveals Margot Robbie as the Iconic Mattel Doll Come to Life
“Since the beginning of time, since the first little girl ever existed, there have been…dolls.”
This is how the first teaser trailer for writer/director Greta Gerwig’s Barbie opens, with little girls playing with dolls in a beautiful but barren landscape that is meant to evoke, both in sound and image, the iconic prehistoric “Dawn of Man” sequence in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyessy, where a band of apes are ejected from their watering hole.
“But the dolls are always and forever baby dolls,” our narrator continues. “Until…”
Until Barbie (Margot Robbie) appears, larger than life in a striped bathing suit and standing as tall as the monolith behind her. Then, just as the apes in 2001 began to evolve after stumbling upon a monolith and realizing they can use bones as a weapon, the little girls begin smashing their baby dolls after beholding the majestic colossus that is Barbie.
It’s a cheeky, delightfully weird teaser. Gerwig has become a rising star as a writer/director for a reason, and she’s working with a stacked deck here, so hopes are high that Barbie is going to be something special.
The teaser ends with a peek at the world Barbie inhabits, heavy on pinks, with a glimpse of Ken (Ryan Gosling), as well as Issa Rae and Simu Liu’s characters. They’re joined by America Ferrera, Kate McKinnon, Ariana Greenblatt, Alexandra Shipp, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Michael Cera, and Will Ferrell.
“We like the things that feel a little left of center,” Robbie told The Hollywood Reporter about Barbie. “Something like Barbie where the IP, the name itself, people immediately have an idea of, ‘Oh, Margot is playing Barbie, I know what that is,’ but our goal is to be like, ‘Whatever you’re thinking, we’re going to give you something totally different — the thing you didn’t know you wanted’…can we truly honor the IP and the fan base and also surprise people? Because if we can do all that and provoke a thoughtful conversation, then we’re really firing on all cylinders.”
If this first teaser is any indication, Barbie is definitely going to subvert expectations.
Check out the teaser trailer below. Barbie hits theaters on July 21, 2023.
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Featured image: Caption: MARGOT ROBBIE as Barbie in Warner Bros. Pictures’ “BARBIE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
