Barbie and Ken said “hiya” to Las Vegas.
Greta Gerwig, Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, the Oscar-nominated director and stars of “Barbie,” were on hand to talk up the neon-coated movie at CinemaCon, the annual exhibition trade show currently underway at Caesars Palace.
Dressed entirely in pink, Robbie told the crowd that the set of “Barbie” was a “dopamine hit.” She called the chance to play the plastic doll a “huge and exciting opportunity — and a rare one. Everyone knows Barbie, and she’s never been on the big screen.”
Gosling, wearing a T-shirt that said “From director Greta Gerwig” in the signature “Barbie” font, admitted he was apprehensive to take on the gravitas of such a famous figure. “Up until this point, I only knew Ken from afar. I didn’t know Ken from within,” he said. “I doubted my Kenergy.”
Before debuting a lengthy look at “Barbie,” Gerwig talked about writing the screenplay with her long-time partner Noah Baumbach.
“We were making each other laugh and then we got to the end and we started to make each other cry. He thought it was very good and was maybe wanting to direct it,” she told the crowd at Caesars Palace. “And I said, ‘Step aside.’ There was a point I was so in love with it that I couldn’t imagine anyone else doing it.”
When it came time for the cameras to roll, Gerwig said, she “ruined so many takes by laughing behind the monitor.”
Though “Barbie” is inescapable online, igniting the internet and launching a thousand memes, there’s plenty of mystery about the movie. The fantasy-comedy follows the world’s most famous doll, who sets off for the human world to find true happiness after being expelled from Barbieland for being less than perfect.
In the never-before-seen footage, which played enthusiastically to the room of theater owners, Barbie is living the good life. That is, until more than a few unusual phenomenons — like cold showers, burnt waffles, funky haircuts and weird-smelling basements — start to rattle the inhabitants of BarbieLand. Barbie and friends are particularly scandalized as the doll’s perfectly arched heels transform into flat feet. The horror!
So she goes on a journey to visit “weird Barbie,” played by Kate McKinnon, who offers her a choice between high heels or Birkenstocks.
“You can know the truth about whatever you have to do — or you can go back to your regular life and forget any of this ever happened to you,” she says.
Barbie ignores the truth (in the form of the Birkenstocks) and grabs the high heel.
Then, set to the tune of “Closer to Fine” by Indigo Girls, Barbie ventures off to the real world. She’s surprised by Ken, who pops up in the trunk of her convertable with his roller skates. “I literally never go anywhere without them,” he says.
Just about every A-lister on the planet stars in “Barbie,” whose cast includes but is not limited to Issa Rae, Dua Lipa, Simu Liu, Helen Mirren, John Cena and Will Ferrell. It’s slated to open in theaters on July 21, the same day as director Christopher Nolan’s equally star-studded blockbuster “Oppenheimer.”
Warner Bros. brought its expansive slate to CinemaCon, including previews of “Dune: Part Two,” the Timothée Chalamet-led musical “Wonka” and “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.”
Earlier in Tuesday morning’s presentation, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav praised the collaborative relationship between studios and cinemas. “We tell the stories. You bring in the people — and it becomes magic.”
