A24 and 59% Productions are bringing Barney back. The production companies are partnering with Mattel Films to bring everyone’s favorite purple dinosaur to life.
Ayo Edebiri from the wildly popular FX series ‘The Bear’ is set to write the screenplay and to potentially star in the movie.
As for the plot, details are limited. Since the project was first announced back in 2019, the execs attached to the project have commented that the movie will be made for the millennials who grew up watching Barney.
Mattel Films’ Robbie Brenner said “The project will speak to the nostalgia of the brand in a way that will resonate with adults, while entertaining today’s kids.”
The message sounds similar to what we heard before the release of ‘Barbie’ in 2023. Like Greta Gerwig’s approach to bringing Barbie to the big screen, the producers of the new Barney movie want to modernize the story while remaining authentic to the message and characters from the original series.
Mattel Films executive Kevin McKeon reiterated that message in an interview with The New Yorker. “We’re leaning into the Millennial angst of the property rather than fine-tuning this for kids,” McKeon said. “It’s really a play for adults. Not that it’s R-rated, but it’ll focus on some of the trials and tribulations of being 30-something, growing up with Barney—just the level of disenchantment within the generation.”
There’s no update yet on when the movie will be released. Since the 2019 announcement, we’ve seen periodic updates about the status of the project, with 59%’s Daniel Kaluuya telling Yahoo in 2023 “I ask for high standards on anything that I work on, and I’m producing this one, so it’s still in development.”
If you’re looking all the nostalgia in animated form before the movie comes to the big screen, you can watch the reboot series ‘Barney’s World’ now streaming on Max.
