Maybe, Just Maybe, We Don’t Actually Need a Polly Pocket Movie?

Like all millennial girl who grew up chewing on plastic Polly Pocket garments (It’s a factor!), I used to be excited once I first heard, again in 2021, that the teeny, tiny doll would heart a enormous Hollywood film starring Lily Collins and helmed by none aside from Women creator, Lena Dunham.

But once I learn yesterday that Dunham had dropped out of writing and directing Mattel’s Polly Pocket film, I felt an odd sense of…reduction?

“I believe Greta [Gerwig] managed this unbelievable feat [with Barbie], which was to make this factor that was actually sweet to so many alternative varieties of individuals and was completely and divinely Greta,” Dunham informed New Yorker author Rachel Syme by the use of clarification. “And I simply—I felt like, until I can do it that approach, I’m not going to do it. I don’t suppose I’ve that in me. I really feel like the following film I make must really feel like a film that I completely must make. Nobody however me may make it. And I did suppose different folks may make Polly Pocket.”

I noticed Barbie 3 times in theaters (carrying pink every time), so I’m the final particular person to leap on the anti-toy-movie bandwagon, however there’s one thing deeply refreshing about seeing Dunham step away from this explicit challenge. Hasn’t it been exhausting, watching the powers that govern Hollywood comply with up anyone hit with a slew of pale imitations? I imply, do we actually want Barney and Sizzling Wheels motion pictures to attempt to recapture the magic of Barbenheimer? (Or, for that matter, a sequel to each aughts film ever made?)

I genuinely suppose that Dunham may have made a Polly Pocket film that I might have loved watching, however I love her for realizing when to step again and concentrate on creating unique artwork, as a substitute of simply churning out extra Mattel IP that may’t presumably stand as much as the pre-press-tour magic of Barbie. Progress—it comes for us all, in the long run!