Actress Margot Robbie, who recently starred in Barbie as well as produced the film under her LuckyChap company, questioned why certain films are being greenlit and made by Hollywood Studios because the scripts are terrible.
Margot Robbie as Stereotypical Barbie in Barbie (2023), Warner Bros. Pictures
In an interview with Deadline, Robbie was asked, “With LuckyChap, you’ve embraced the sense of holding the good and bad in the same hands. Not just with I, Tonya and Barbie. It’s there in the work of Emerald Fennell—with Promising Young Woman and Saltburn—and it’s there in Birds of Prey. It feels baked into the DNA. Did it feel like a radical approach when you set out with the company?”
As part of her answer, Robbie shared her passion for rewatching films that she enjoys such as The Philadelphia Story and Bridesmaids and revealed, “So unless, I’m striving to make a movie that’s as good as those movies, I’m just going to rewatch them.”
Margot Robbie as Stereotypical Barbie in Barbie (2023), Warner Bros. Pictures
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From there, Robbie questioned why certain films are greenlit by Hollywood studios and executives, “Also, it costs so much to make a movie. Sometimes you’ll read a script and think, ‘Why is this being made?’ There’s nothing new or interesting. Nothing better than what has already been done a million times before. Why would anyone want to spend millions of dollars—sometimes tens or hundreds of millions of dollars—on something we’ve already seen?’ That is just crazy to me.”
She elaborated, “It’s a horrible waste of money, and a horrible waste of people’s time. It takes years to make a movie, and it takes so much money to make a movie, so if you’re not really trying to do something, I just don’t know why you’d bother at all.”
From there Robbie pondered, “Maybe studios have quotas to fill and release dates to hit, but as producers, we don’t. There’s no tally have to hit, like, ‘By the time I’m 50 I have to have made 30 movies.’ It’s like, no, just make the great ones. I just don’t understand how you muster the energy to start the journey by aiming for mediocrity.”
Margot Robbie as Stereotypical Barbie in Barbie (2023), Warner Bros. Pictures
Robbie then shared she believes many of the studios operate this way due to fear, “It’s autopilot, and a lot of it comes from a place of fear. People make the safe choice because everything feels scary. I get that, too. Trust me, like I said, I’ve got 10% of that in me. I just happen to have that 90% of me that’s more optimistic, so the 10% that’s operating from a place of fear can only ever make me aware of the scary potential outcomes. It really can’t sway my decisions.”
She later added, “If I were putting up all the money, I might be operating from a place of more fear. But if you act on that impulse every time, you’re going to play things way too safe, and I don’t believe you can really make great art when you’re playing things safe.”
“There’s a difference between being responsible and playing it safe, absolutely,” Robbie asserted. “A big, big difference. We are always being responsible. We’re responsible producers and filmmakers. But I definitely can’t stand the idea of playing things safe.”
Margot Robbie as Stereotypical Barbie in Barbie (2023), Warner Bros. Pictures
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As for what Robbie has in the works moving forward, she noted that the Ocean’s 11 prequel is still in early development, but they are moving forward with a film titled Naughty from Olivia Wilde.
She relayed, “Well, [the Ocean’s 11 prequel’s] still in development. Word got out about that; we didn’t release anything because it’s way too soon, to be honest. whether it winds up being the next thing, I don’t know. I don’t think so. It’s a pretty big project to put together and there are certain logistical things that we have to time it around.”
“For us [as] a company, we have a film with Olivia Wilde, [Naughty], which is moving quite quickly, so that could be the next thing we shoot. I’m not acting in it, just producing. A couple of TV things should go this year too,” Robbie shared.
“And for me as an actor, I love acting in things that I’m not a producer on, so I’m looking at a couple of things but there’s nothing concrete yet,” she concluded.
Margot Robbie as Stereotypical Barbie in Barbie (2023), Warner Bros. Pictures
What do you make of Robbie’s comments about why Hollywood studios and executives greenlight certain films?
