It’s been two years since Barbie became a global phenomenon and box office triumph, yet Hollywood seems to have taken all the wrong lessons from it. The simultaneous release of Barbie and Oppenheimer, dubbed ‘Barbenheimer’ online, was a lightning-in-a-bottle moment, but the industry still hasn’t grasped what truly made it resonate with audiences.

With Barbie, director Greta Gerwig and star Margot Robbie delivered a sharp and resonant take on modern feminism that appealed to women worldwide. Though inspired by Mattel’s iconic doll, the film’s success wasn’t about brand recognition; it was about originality and vision. Still, studios continue to miss the point as they prepare to churn out a wave of copycat projects.

Polly Pocket Is The Latest In A String Of Misguided Attempts To Recapture Barbie’s Magic

It was recently announced that Mattel Studios is moving forward with a Polly Pocket movie with Amazon MGM Studio (via ᴅᴇᴀᴅline.) This is a clear attempt to replicate the success of Barbie by leaning into another well-known children’s property and delivering a big-screen adaptation that can appeal to adult viewers’ nostalgia.

With Jordan Weiss and Dan Brier penning the script, Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine co-developing, and Lily Collins set to star, Polly Pocket has a lot of talent behind it, but it’s hard not to feel that this is simply a misguided cash-in. The success of Barbie was a special moment, and it resonated so deeply because it wasn’t forced.

Polly Pocket represents just one in a string of movies being made in response to Barbie, such as a Barney the Dinosaur movie, a H๏τ Wheels film, and a live-action version of Masters of the Universe. A 2025 report from Business Insider revealed that Mattel is planning 19 movies based on famous toys and brands following the success of Barbie.

Movies Like Polly Pocket Are Proving The Very Point Barbie Was Trying To Make

The irony of Barbie’s success is that its ripple effects prove the very point the film was trying to make. The message of Barbie was about standing against conformity and resisting commodification. Rather than take this as a cue to aim for more spontaneity in Hollywood, the results were the development of a Polly Pocket movie nobody asked for.

While Barbie learned an important lesson about being true to oneself, Mattel seems to have decided the best course of action is to try to duplicate the movie’s success, just like a plastic toy on the factory line. It feels strange that the company responsible for the Barbie movie has become a prime example of exactly what it was critiquing.

It also feels perplexing that Mattel would attempt to exploit so many of its toys in this way, as few other properties hold the same kind of cultural relevance as Barbie. As a toy first manufactured in 1959, Barbie has stood as a symbol of femininity throughout the years and was the perfect candidate for a satirical deconstruction by an auteur filmmaker like Gerwig.

Although Polly Pocket is a recognizable toy, it doesn’t hold nearly the same kind of cultural credence as Barbie, and it’s hard even to envision how it could use its brand recognition in a way that could match Gerwig’s vision. Instead, the Polly Pocket movie is likely to be immediately compared to Barbie, and the results likely won’t be pretty.

Studios seem intent on chasing Barbie’s pink aesthetics without understanding what made it work. Barbie succeeded not because of its glossy style, but because it used that style to explore deeper feminist ideas and cultural commentary. It wasn’t just a bright and colorful film based on a toy; it was a sharp, self-aware deconstruction disguised as one.

What Lessons Hollywood Really Needed To Learn From Barbie’s Success

The reason so many adult viewers turned out to see Barbie in theaters was not because they were fans of the plastic toy doll, but because it was clear that Gerwig was using the character to say something essential about the world we live in today. Having grossed over $1.477 billion at the box office, Barbie meant something.

As an empowering story about a woman discovering her own worth, idenтιтy, and sense of self, despite playing a toy come to life, Robbie’s performance was steeped in a sense of humanity. Even Ryan Gosling’s role as Ken showcased the way that toxic masculinity propagates in society and tapped into the zeitgeist of modern times.

The real lesson that Hollywood should have learned from Barbie is that audiences are craving powerful female-led stories, that studios should have faith in directorial vision, and that it’s essential to allow creatives to take unconventional approaches in their work. All of this came together to create a genuine and compelling film that was a global hit.

Barbie’s undeniable success should serve as the starting point for a new era of creativity in Hollywood, but instead, we’ll just have to sit through dozens of toy movie adaptations. Perhaps Polly Pocket will confound all expectations, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that the industry is recycling the same old toy over and over again.