While plastic princess Barbie might have made a mint on the small screen (she’s starred in more than 30 straight-to-DVD movies), it’s taken a while for her to make her way to the cinema. But, eager for a new franchise, Sony has joined forces with Mattel and they’ve recruited Diablo Cody for help.
The live-action take on Barbie, which was originally scripted by Sex and the City and Rio 2’s Jenny Bicks, is being given a rewrite from Cody, who first broke out with her Oscar-winning script for Juno. She’s since written Megan Fox horror Jennifer’s Body and Charlize Theron comedy Young Adult.
Hoping to turn Barbie into a new series of films, producers Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald are working alongside Amy Pascal, Sony’s former co-chair who is now back to being a producer again. Parkes has praised Cody’s involvement by promising that she will bring “a legitimately contemporary tone” to the character.
The producing pair of Parkes and MacDonald are also rebooting Men in Black for Sony, which may end up crossing over with 21 Jump Street.
It’s not the first female-focused franchise that Cody has been involved with, as her pitch for a Sweet Valley High musical is apparently still in play, and she’s also no stranger to the rewrite gig after she helped to polish the script for the recent Evil Dead remake. Next up, she has Ricki and the Flash, a comedy with Meryl Streep, that releases this summer.
