Sharon Stone pitched a Barbie girl in a ’90s world but was “laughed out of the studio”
Sharon Stone revealed on Instagram that she wanted to make a Barbie movie decades ago
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As hard as it is to believe, there was a time in American film culture when the closest one came to a Barbie film was The Kentucky Fried Movie. In a pre-Pirates Of The Caribbean Hollywood, movies weren’t based on brands as much—least of all, brands that don’t have a strong narrative thrust. In the 90s, people couldn’t imagine looking at a Barbie doll or Haunted Mansion ride and saying, “Let’s throw $100 million at that and get us a hit.” Also, Hollywood was even more sexist and male-dominated than it is now. Just ask Sharon Stone, who says she pitched a Barbie movie in the 90s and was “laughed out of the studio.”
Stone briefly recounted her experience trying to get Barbie made on Instagram, responding to America Ferrera’s inspired #SeeHer award speech at this year’s Critics’ Choice Awards. “I was laughed out [of] the studio when I came [with] the Barbie idea in the ’90s [with] the support of the head of Barbie,” she commented on Ferrera’s post that included the speech. “How far we’ve come thank you ladies for your courage and endurance.”
After becoming the biggest star in the world, thanks to Basic Instinct, Stone faced a backlash for being successful and beautiful. Of course, this mostly came from the Razzies, who insisted on handing her Golden Raspberries because there’s nothing the Razzies hate more than a successful female actor. Still, she made The Quick And The Dead and Casino in the same year while the Razzies continued their multi-decade fight for relevancy. In the past, Stone has told numerous horror stories from working in Hollywood. She accused a former Sony executive of exposing himself and her co-stars of misogyny (not De Niro and Pesci, though).
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ironic considering barbie itself felt like an homage to 90’s style comedies (amongst many other things).
Get Brady Bunch era Gary Cole as Ken and we have something here.
Like, Southern Gothic era Gary Cole?
The show was called American Gothic, and it was fantastic. Where else are you going to see Gary Cole, Nick Searcy, Sarah Paulson, and the guy from Tokyo Drift all together?
American Gothic, shit yep you’re right. I wonder if it’s on streaming anywhere…
I still have it on DVD. It holds up well, but they released the episodes in the order they aired instead of production order. I can see why it didn’t make it. The changes were pretty egregious; they aired an episode where someone found out she was pregnant before the episode where the baby was conceived. It was surely nonsense to 90s viewers.
Yeah that show was totally different than most TV then.
Since we’re casting actors who have been in, well, EVERYTHING, why not add Jimmy James too?
Oh yeah the guy who wrote Macho Business Donkey Wrestler, I love that book!
Jimmy has FANCY PLANS!…and pants to match.
Jimmy has fear?A thousand times no!
“What did you mean when you said, Donkey Donkey DONKEY Donkey Donkey?”
Donkey donkey donkey donkey. Donkey.
Someone should tell AV Club authors they aren’t required to buy into every claim of grievance a Hollywood celebrity announces.Sharon Stone was never the biggest star in the world. Stone had a big hit in 1992, Basic Instinct, which she followed up with junk like Sliver and The Specialist. She was the third most famous person in Casino. It was actually Pesci who was in the midst of a hot streak, having starred in Home Alone, Home Alone 2 (which beat Basic Instinct at the 1992 box office), Lethal Weapon 2, Lethal Weapon 3 (which also beat Basic Instinct at the 1992 box office), My Cousin Vinny, and Goodfellas. And Pesci himself could not have claimed the title of biggest movie star of the early 90s, a title that would likely go to Harrison Ford, Kevin Costner, Tom Hanks, or Arnold Schwarzenegger. Even if we’re only talking about women, Stone was never as famous as Julia Roberts.I’m also not convinced that sexism is the reason a Sharon Stone Barbie movie wasn’t taken seriously. A Barbie movie really is kind of a stupid idea, unless it is written and directed by Greta Gerwig and featuring two really endearing and charismatic movie stars. Stone does not have Robbie’s off-beat sunniness, and it’s hard to picture her in the role, unless the only qualifications are being blonde and attractive.
Yeah and the Barbie movie we got only came about after years of going through different scripts and actors.
Right. It’s like someone complaining that no one was interested in their pitch for a Robert Oppenheimer biopic. It’s not like the premise itself is inherently awesome. When you combine a director critics and audiences love, a script based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning book, and a cast that includes Matt Damon and Robert Downey Jr., suddenly an Oppenheimer biopic seems like a much surer bet.
I think ‘Barbie’ has found just the right time period to exist. The 90s were too drenched in irony for it to work; it would have come across as crass and cynical. The early thousands were too sincere; it would have been toothless and maudlin. Everyone was too angry and depressed in the teens. But here and now, I think we’ve hit that balance of genuine enthusiasm and knowing self-awareness that we got the ‘Barbie’ movie we did, and it fortunately aligned with a Robbie/Gosling pairing that is pretty much unbeatable.
Sharon Stone 30 years ago was much more beautiful than Margo Robbie today but indeed she really never could have played Barbie.
Of all the choices to play Barbie in the early 90’s, there was no way the studios were going to go with the lady famous for showing her vagina on film.* There was already enough heat going on with Batman being to violent to sell McDonald’s toys.*I am aware that she was tricked into doing this
Yeah, I agree with you. And even when you say “tricked,” I think you have to qualify that a bit. Stone appeared in a scene where she was not wearing underwear, where the camera was pointed at her at about waist level, and where the implication of the scene was that the police characters could see her vagina. She asserts that she was told viewers would not be able to see anything.
Sounds like tricked to me. Regardles, she seems not to have wanted people to see her vagina.
“A Barbie movie really is kind of a stupid idea, unless it is written and directed by Greta Gerwig and featuring two really endearing and charismatic movie stars.”A 90s Barbie would have been bad. But this is a ridiculous claim.
Biggest star in the world is a huge reach, she had plenty of clunkers in the ‘90s and Basic Instinct made good money but wasn’t exactly Titanic.
And thank god that movie didn’t get made, there’s no way it would have been anything close to what we ended up getting. There’s plenty of things to blame sexism for but I just don’t see this as being one of them.
yeah i mean she was, at best, ‘highest paid female star of the 90s, until demi moore’ right?halle berry being named sharon stone in the flinstones movie still an all-timer joke, though.
Seems like everyone is forgetting about Police Academy 4.
Not only would Stone’s Barbie movie have been nowhere near as good as Gerwig’s, if it had been made we would never have gotten Gerwig’s. Hollywood would have deemed that subject mined out.
Exactly! And I really don’t see any Hollywoo exec greenlighting a Barbie movie before GI Joe and Transformers movie were made. I don’t think they would have given a man a green light for that either.
“How far we’ve come thank you ladies for your courage and endurance.”
I guess this is what progress can look like.
Humans are weird.
I like America Ferrara, and liked Barbie. I still don’t think it took particular courage and endurance for America Ferrara to act in Barbie.
On one hand, stories are important. People need stories. And if things like Barbie teach people to get along better, then it’s as valuable as anything written by Aesop, or Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, George, Ringo, etc.
On the other hand, seems a roundabout kinda way of improving how women get stuff made in Hollywood. Especially considering it’s no secret that only about 20 to 25% of directors in Hollywood are women. I would think addressing that directly would be an indication of how far we’ve come. But hey, America Ferrera’s monologue is apparently becoming a standard audition piece so, the gods move in mysterious ways I guess.
I certainly agree with you that stories are important. My disagreement is with the words “courage and endurance” specifically.I guess I can imagine situations where acting takes courage — when the role is especially controversial, or especially harrowing to play. If you want to say it took courage for the actors in Schindler’s List to come to set everyday, I’d agree with you. But that doesn’t apply to Barbie, a light, funny movie that seems like it was fun to film.
Sure. I figured Sharon Stone was referring to the “courage and endurance” to get a Barbie movie made.
Acting is part of that, but arguably writing and directing more so. Not to mention convincing the studio to pay for it. But it’s one movie. Is it going to raise the percentage of female directors in Hollywood? I’ll believe it when I see it.
I don’t think it took any courage to write, direct, or produce a Barbie movie, anymore than it took courage to write, direct, or produce Transformers.
Did Transformers have a socio-political message? Because they certainly tried to have a few in Barbie. You may or may not think those messages were conveyed successfully (I don’t), but trying to get a movie made and released that on the surface is about a toy but ostensibly underneath is feminist and anti-corporation possibly takes a bit of courage in Hollywood. Possibly.
And considering Hollywood’s penchant for rewrites, I can see how the creators would need some endurance to see their vision through.
Ah gee, look what you’re making me do. Defending Barbie ffs. 😀
Now I’m just thinking of the famous “leg crossing” scene from ‘Basic Instinct’ and how, given what we know about Barbie, it would be far less graphic if she did it.
For anyone writing that she wasn’t the “biggest star in the world” [for a time], yes, she absolutely was. You couldn’t go anywhere or read much without seeing her name or hearing about her. She was legend and still is. She’ll always be famous for those few seconds on film, or we might say notorious. She was bigger than Madonna for a while. And Basic Instinct spawned quite a few movies that played to the same story – Madonna’s Body of Evidence, the very next year, for example (our Lady of Appropriations). Did this make her a hot property? A Hollywood darling? It did not. But that’s not how you get famous in Hollywood.
No. No, she wasn’t. Being very famous does not magically equate to being the biggest star in the world. Nobody is debating whether or not she was extremely famous, but at absolutely no point was she ever “th3 biggest star in the world.” And claiming that she was bigger than Madonna at any point in the 90s is just absurd and ridiculous. Not even close.And how does the movie Basic Instinct supposedly spawning imitators (which is itself debatable) somehow prove or reflect upon Stone herself being a big star? Did she write or direct the movie?
I agree that Sharon Stone was a big star. But I don’t think she was the biggest at any point. You mention “You couldn’t go anywhere or read much without seeing her name or hearing about her” which was true. But the same could also be said about, like, Julia Roberts, for example. Basic Instinct came out in 1992. Here is a list of the Highest Grossing Movie Stars of 1992. Stone definitely made the list (she’s 58). But so did some other huge names like Julia Roberts (6), Arnold (12), Tom Cruise (15), and so on. I don’t think Stone ever hit the heights of her peers who would have long runs of successful movies. She was definitely a big star, but I don’t think she was ever the top of the pyramid: https://www.the-numbers.com/box-office-star-records/domestic/yearly-acting/highest-grossing-1992-stars
Exactly. This is why Sharon Stone was the star of Evita, was one of the biggest global touring musicians, released mutliple platinum albums, had multiple music videos playing constantly on THE pop culture cable channel of the time, and had a book on the best seller list.Sorry for the snark. I LOVE Sharon Stone, but you are really underappreciating how big Madonna was. Everyone in the world knew who Madonna was. Some people knew who Sharon Stone was. Most of those people sadly knew her as the sexy, steely lady that very briefly showed her snatch in an othewise mostly forgotten movie.
Are you always so insufferable? Stone was never the biggest star in the world, quantifiably so.
Gee it’s almost as if she had zero track record for originating and pitching successful projects
I think it’s also telling that the AV Club, in trying to establish Stone as a huge star, mentioned the two Sharon Stone movies everyone thinks of, and then was left to try to convince us that The Quick and the Dead was an iconic smash hit.
Sure she did. JFC Sharon, no one cares.
Oh sweetie but you do!
Yes, before Pirates of the Carribean there were no movies based on brands. This is why they only made new original films, like multiple sequels and ripoffs to Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Transformers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Care Bears, John Hughes making 391 ENTIRELY DIFFERENT movies, and Disney not existing at all. This is why I’m not a film cricket.
Ok so the lady that showed her bits in a movie wanted to be Barbie and (shockingly) a studio said nahhh? This is not news.