This Easter, a new movie based on Sylvanian Families will be released into cinemas. If you’ve been keeping up with films based on toys for the last decade or so, then you’ll be forgiven for feeling a modicum of dread upon hearing this news. Because ever since Barbie took a billion dollars and found itself nominated for a bunch of Oscars, a toy movie isn’t allowed to be a toy movie any more. It has to be an auteur-driven toy movie; one that also functions as a commentary about the capitalist machinations that drive the toy industry.
It’s everywhere. In 2022, Emily V Gordon and Jon M Chu announced that they were making a Play-Doh movie that would be about “creativity, imagination, and the purpose of art”. JJ Abrams is making a film based on Hot Wheels that he describes as “emotional and grounded and gritty”. A24 is making a Barney the Dinosaur film said to be heavily influenced by the work of Charlie Kaufman. These are all real things that are actually happening.
