The first teaser trailer for Margot Robbie’s Barbie movie is here and it’s every bit as glorious as you hoped it would be.
In a clear homage to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, director and co-writer Greta Gerwig has declared that Barbie isn’t going to be anything you expected.
The trailer is inspired by the opening scene of Kubrick’s sci-fi masterpiece, but replaces apes playing with bones with little girls playing dolls.
A voiceover – Helen Mirren! – intones, “Since the beginning of time, since the first little girl ever existed, there have been dolls, but the dolls have always and forever been baby dolls, until…”
The shot shifts to a shadowed mass appearing, backlit by the sun. Not quite a monolith, but just as iconic in other ways, revealed to be Barbie, standing tall and with the Robbie’s distinct smile and wink.
After the titles, there are scenes which reveal Barbie’s hyper-coloured visual palette – pink, pink and more pink – while there are also glimpses of Ryan Gosling, Sex Education and Doctor Who star Ncuti Gatwa, Insecure’s Issa Rae, Shang-Chi’s Simu Liu and Peaky Blinders’ Kingsley Ben-Adir.
Barbie is one of the most-anticipated movies of 2023, boasting not just its all-star cast but the dream filmmaking team of real-life partners and creative collaborators Gerwig and Noah Baumbach.
Gerwig and Baumbach signed on in 2019 to write the screenplay and Gerwig was confirmed in 2021 to direct.
Little has been revealed of its plot, only that it would include various versions of Barbies and Kens.
The cast also includes Will Ferrell, Kate McKinnon, America Ferrera, Emma Mackey, Emerald Fennell and Michael Cera.
When the production was photographed filming in California earlier this year, the blindingly bright outfits set the internet ablaze. Stylewatchers and tastemakers have predicted “Barbiecore” would be a trend by mid-year when the film is released.
Robbie revealed to Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show that she was “mortified” by the public’s reaction to the set photos.
“I can’t tell you how mortified we were, by the way,” Robbie said. “We look like laughing and having fun, but we’re dying on the inside. Dying. I was like, ‘this is the most humiliating moment of my life’.”
Robbie said having to film exterior scenes in Los Angeles was always going to attract attention – they didn’t exactly blend in – but she was surprised by the level it reached.
“I knew we had some exteriors to shoot in LA. I knew once you were doing exteriors, you’re gonna get papped. There’s probably going to be a little crowd of people who are going to take notice because, you know, we stand out a little bit in those outfits.
“So I knew there was going to be a little bit of attention and probably some photos would get out there, but not like it did.
“It was like mad. It was like hundreds of people watching all the time.”
Gerwig is best known for directing films Lady Bird and Little Women. She became only the fifth woman ever to be nominated for a Directing Oscar in 2017 for Lady Bird, and has also been nominated twice in the screenplay categories.
Baumbach has made The Squid and the Whale, Marriage Story, The Meyerowitz Stories and Frances Ha. His latest film White Noise, which stars Gerwig and Adam Driver, is currently in cinemas now and on Netflix from later this month.
Barbie will be in cinemas on July 20, 2023.