Barbie: Original Writer Diablo Cody Explains Exit From Project, Says The LEGO Movie Was a "Roadblock"

By Jamie Jirak

Barbie is being released in theaters this month, and it will see Margot Robbie taking on the role of the titular doll. The movie was written and directed by Greta Gerwig, but the original version of the film was going to be quite different.  The movie was originally going to star comedian Amy Schumer until she exited the project and a new creative team was brought on. That version was also going to be written by Juno scribe Diablo Cody. During a recent interview with GQ, Cody talked about her own exit from the project and explained why The LEGO Movie was a "roadblock" at the time. 

"I think I know why I sh*t the bed," Cody explained. "When I was first hired for this, I don't think the culture had not embraced the femme or the bimbo as valid feminist archetypes yet. If you look up 'Barbie' on TikTok you'll find this wonderful subculture that celebrates the feminine, but in 2014, taking this skinny blonde white doll and making her into a heroine was a tall order."

"That idea of an anti-Barbie made a lot of sense given the feminist rhetoric of 10 years ago," Cody said of her Barbie project that never happened. "I didn't really have the freedom then to write something that was faithful to the iconography; they wanted a girl-boss feminist twist on Barbie, and I couldn't figure it out because that's not what Barbie is." She added, "I heard endless references to The Lego Movie in development, and it created a problem for me because they had done it so well. Any time I came up with something meta, it was too much like what they had done. It was a roadblock for me, but now enough time has passed that they can just cast [The Lego Movie villain] Will Ferrell as the antagonist in a real-life Barbie movie and nobody cares."

During a recent appearance on Watch What Happens Live!, Schumer was asked why she left such the project.

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"I think we said it was scheduling conflicts but it really was just creative differences," Schumer explained. "But there's a new team behind it and it looks like it's very feminist and cool so I will be seeing that movie."

What Is Barbie About?

In Barbie, to live in Barbie Land is to be a perfect being in a perfect place. Unless you have a full-on existential crisis. Or you're a Ken. From Oscar-nominated writer/director Greta Gerwig comes Barbie, which hits theaters on July 21st. Barbie stars Oscar-nominees Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling as Barbie and Ken, alongside America Ferrera, Kate McKinnon, Michael Cera, Ariana Greenblatt, Issa Rae, Rhea Perlman, and Will Ferrell. The film also stars Ana Cruz Kayne, Emma Mackey, Hari Nef, Alexandra Shipp, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Simu Liu, Ncuti Gatwa, Scott Evans, Jamie Demetriou, Connor Swindells, Sharon Rooney, Nicola Coughlan, Ritu Arya, Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter Dua Lipa and Oscar-winner Helen Mirren. Gerwig directed Barbie from a screenplay by Gerwig & Oscar nominee Noah Baumbach, based on Barbie by Mattel. 

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