Oliver’s World: What Hollywood probably won’t learn from ‘Barbie’

Ah, what a big success “Barbie” is.

It's mostly a family movie, or dare I say a children's movie, but it has broad appeal. What will Hollywood learn from it? Films have been very competitive lately, with everyone trying to create a new franchise, a new hit.

“Barbie” has been brushing aside other new releases like “Ninja Turtles” and “The Meg 2.” They don't seem to affect its success. If you read my article earlier in the year, then ... wait, you did read it, right? You know, let's not worry about what Hollywood is doing for a moment. Let's focus on you. Are you even subscribed to the Argus Courier and/or Petaluma360? You should be, as that way you’’ have a stronger sense of continuity between my columns.

Continuity is important, especially in film.

People love the Marvel Cinematic Universe for this very reason — bringing in actors across so many movies. This is what many studios have quickly tried to replicate, but it seems that the saying “haste makes waste” is especially true there. Studios will now mostly want to replicate what Barbie and Mario are doing: aiming for a big hit that helps sell the brand overall.

I must admit, I didn't care for Mario too much. It felt like it was written by an AI. It used popular music, it had fairly bland humor, and it recycled jokes and ideas that have been seen hundreds of times.

It played it safe and didn't attempt to be unique, unlike “Barbie.”

So, what lesson will Hollywood learn? Probably not much.

Usually, a big brand is treated like “Mario,” with too many producers who have too much riding on a project. It has to be accessible, marketable and generally "safe."

But then you have the recent “Planet of the Apes” movies starring Andy Serkis. These films aren't exactly accessible, marketable and safe. They dared to be different. The first entry in the rebooted series, “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” is a genre-bending movie. It's more sci-fi driven, with interesting set pieces and a decent amount of action towards the end. The follow-up, “Dawn,” is really good, blending post-apocalyptic elements with the apes’ story and intentionally pulls the audience in different directions.

It breaks from the usual formula.

The third installment, “War,” takes its own path and feels like an old prisoner of war movie, but it's still decent in its own right. None of these movies is a remake of the original “Planet of the Apes” films. I'm not a huge fan of that series, but I can recognize the Andy Serkis trilogy as a collection of very good films.

That's the luxury that “Planet of the Apes” had. No one saw that franchise as a billion-dollar movie, so it wasn't overly meddled with, unlike Spider-Man or Godzilla. Those studios made those movies with the intention of creating a big summer event that was supposed to be the ultimate fun popcorn movie, an expectation that often hampered the potential of the film.

“Barbie” may have found success for the same reason.

It wasn't required to be one of the highest-grossing movies of the year. It just turned out that way. The creative people behind it had the freedom to make their own movie. It's wild for me to see the voice of Pony from “China IL” directing a billion-dollar movie, but her comedic sensibilities also shone through. “Barbie” and the “Planet of the Apes” trilogy should teach the same lesson to Hollywood – let creative people do their thing.

Who knows? With the meta nature and the cultural zeitgeist around “Oppenheimer” being released at the same time, we might even get “Barbie 2: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.”

Oliver Graves is a stand-up comic and award-winning columnist. “Oliver’s World” runs every other week in the Argus-Courier.