Entertainment
If you're a parent, Lauren Greenfield's new doc about teens and social media 'is a horror movie'
Documentary filmmaker Lauren Greenfield had spent her day with a group of high school students when a startling revelation came up that compelled her to go home and ask her two sons, then about 14 and 20, a question: “Is BDSM really a trend?”
“Oh, yeah, choking is what we’re told girls want,” she recalled one of her sons saying in reference to the risky sexual practice that some teens engage in.
It was 2021 and Greenfield was in the middle of her latest creative frontier: delving into the lives of the first generation raised on social media.
She was interested in unlocking an intimate glimpse of how social media has shaped adolescent minds after seeing her own kids’ distinctive relationship with it.
“They’re different generations,” she said recently from her office in Venice. “My eldest is a reader, my youngest gets his news from TikTok. Just seeing the difference and being concerned about the younger one being on a lot was part of the inspiration for this.”
“Social Studies,” a five-part series premiering Friday at the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado and arriving Sept. 27 on FX, is Greenfield’s latest foray into documenting teen life in Los Angeles.
Her body of work, which includes 2012’s “The Queen of Versailles” and 2019’s “The Kingmaker,” has long chronicled beauty, wealth and power — and the damaging toll of it in excess.
But she’s held a perennial interest in youth culture: “Fast Forward: Growing Up in the Shadow of Hollywood” is a collection of photos and narratives of Los Angeles youth in the 1990s; “Girl Culture” captured the effects of American popular culture on young girls; and her short film “kids + money” features L.A. teens discussing money.
“When I did ‘Fast Forward,’ which was my first project, I was in a very different phase of life,” said Greenfield, who attended the private Crossroads School in Santa Monica as a teenager. “I was just out of college, just starting my career. I very much identified with the kids.”
But for “Social Studies,” “I came to this project as a mother, in terms of how the kids see me,” the filmmaker said.
Dependence on devices and time spent on social media rose dramatically during the pandemic, as restless, isolated teens looked for an escape. In 2021, the surgeon general issued a public health advisory on teen mental health; however, research hasn’t found a direct link between the crisis and social media use.
Sydney, standing to the right, in her freshman dorm room at the University of Arizona. Her relationship to social media, and the temptation to project a sexualized image, is explored in “Social Studies.”
(Lauren Greenfield / Institute )
Greenfield’s series explores the everyday pressures teens confront that have been intensified by social media, including bullying, body-image issues and comparison culture.
“‘Fast Forward’ was all about media influence and how kids were being changed and impacted by media influence. I called it the influence of Hollywood because I was specifically looking at celebrity and image culture and materialism,” Greenfield said. “I wanted to come back and explore the same subject but with this new influence of social media. It was similar but amplified. Social media was everything I had looked at throughout my career but on steroids.”
The series was largely filmed in Los Angeles and features teens from 10 schools, including Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles and Hamilton high schools. Greenfield shot roughly 1,200 hours of footage over 150 days — covering the 2021-22 school year and some subsequent months. She also recorded the teens’ phone and social media use.
The teens who open up their phones and their lives include Sydney, who grapples with curating her social feeds with provocative videos and images of herself; Ellie, who had a taste of viral fame after her relationship with actor Jack Dylan Grazer (nephew to mega Hollywood producer Brian Grazer); and Jonathan, who volunteers at Teen Line, the nationwide nonprofit hotline. A filmmaker himself, Jonathan sets out on a parallel journey, making a movie about teen life with many of the same subjects while taking part in Greenfield’s documentary.
The series arrives at a pivotal moment. On Wednesday, California legislators passed the Phone-Free Schools Act, which would require public schools to create policies to limit or prohibit cellphone use by 2026. The Los Angeles Unified school board already passed a measure this summer to ban phones on campus; it’s expected to take effect in January.
In a conversation earlier this month, edited here for length and clarity, Greenfield discussed how she treated her young subjects as experts, the ease in capturing teens authentically and why parents should watch.
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1. Sydney in “Social Studies.” (Lauren Greenfield / Institute ) 2. Ellie, right, in “Social Studies.” (Lauren Greenfield / Institute )
So much of what you’re after is capturing your subject in a raw and authentic way. And when you’re dealing with kids who have grown up in this digital era, where so much of the image they put out there is curated, I imagine it was challenging to know when you’re really getting the authentic piece.
Surprisingly, I felt like they really brought themselves. I remember the first group session, nobody dressed up. It wasn’t even like school, which is a bit of a fashion show. It was more like camp. People were not wearing makeup, they were not curating outfits.
I remember a long time ago, somebody told me, “If you spend enough time, you really get authentic selves,” because posing or pretending takes a lot of energy, and eventually, it’s too taxing. That’s always been really important to my work, slow journalism. There’s always a process of people becoming more and more comfortable with you. I also started with a little bit of a bigger group than I ended up with, but the ones whose stories I really followed, we became very close, and I depend on that. They have to let me know something is happening so I can go and be there. And so they opened up more and more. I felt like by the end, they really presented their authentic selves.
For this one, everybody knew we’re looking at social media and its impact, and even in terms of who I selected, the kids had to care about that because it’s a lot to open up your lives. I think a lot of the kids felt a sense of purpose in doing that.
Having conversations with teens, particularly ones you don’t know, can be challenging. In addition to one-on-one interviews, you held group sessions. It felt a little bit like “The Breakfast Club.” Kids who maybe wouldn’t ordinarily talk to each other are in this room together, realizing their commonalities. Did you see that as a way to get your subjects comfortable?
I like that you said “The Breakfast Club” because that was a little bit of inspiration. The first seven groups I did, we weren’t even filming them as groups yet. I just wanted to hear what they thought was important, what I should cover, what were the problems. I wanted to be led by them. One of the big impetuses for this is I felt like the kids are the experts. We’ve seen experts talk about this topic, we’ve heard from parents, we’ve heard from tech, we’ve heard from legislature leaders, but I feel like the kids were the experts. One of the things I really tried to do was capture the duality of them being both subjects and experts.
There’s three elements: There’s the vérité — where we see them in their lives, sometimes they’re posturing, sometimes they’re presenting, sometimes they’re with friends, sometimes they’re lying. There’s the interviews where they’re just brutally honest, they break the fourth wall, they tell me the truth. That was really interesting, because also we have their social [media screen capture,] so we see the difference between what they’re saying and what they’re showing. And then the third perspective is the group where they’re talking to each other, and there they also were very honest. Sometimes they said it was almost like therapy; it was a place where they could talk about things that were affecting them all the time.
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1. Teens featured in “Social Studies” gather for one of the group discussions held by filmmaker Lauren Greenfield. (Lauren Greenfield / Institute ) 2. Dominic, center, speaks during one of the sessions. (Lauren Greenfield / Institute )
One of the striking elements to the series is that you’ve asked your subjects to screen record their activity on their phone. How important was that piece?
So important. I feel like it’s a time capsule of the culture, the stuff that we captured. It’s really shocking to see how the algorithm works, to see how toxic some of the rabbit holes can be and to see the details of it. In the series, I didn’t want to have it be two worlds, like cut to a screen on black. I wanted a lot of the social that we’re seeing to be on top of the live action. I really wanted to show that these worlds are intertwined, intermixed, multitasking, and sometimes they’re opposing each other. Sometimes there’s fiction and nonfiction. I don’t want to give away too much for the audience, but I think there’s a lot of really shocking content.
And my hope for the series, ultimately, is that it leads to some kind of regulation. “Fast Forward” was about the early loss of innocence in the ’90s. Now, there’s no innocence. There’s no childhood. You can’t keep your child from seeing devastating things, and they can’t even keep themselves from it, in the sense that the algorithm is going to take you by the hand, and whatever you’re curious about, feed you more and more stuff, and whatever your weakness is, it’ll pull you further into that. And the companies that are creating the algorithm are not doing it with the kids’ best interest in mind. They’re doing it with the interest of keeping them engaged on the platform.
The other theme that’s gone through all of my work, which came back here with a vengeance, is addiction, because it’s really addictive. I struggled with my own son to give limits. But what I realized when I was doing this is, it’s not fair to ask kids to regulate themselves. It’s like opiate addiction.
With fictional depictions of teen life — whether it’s “Euphoria,” “Thirteen” or even “Beverly Hills, 90210” — it’s easy to say, “That’s the extreme, it’s not really like that for teens.” But the first episode of this series is pretty jarring.
Filmmaker Lauren Greenfield: “My hope for the series, ultimately, is that it leads to some kind of regulation.”
(Marcus Ubungen / For The Times)
When I was doing feedback screenings, I showed [filmmaker] Nicole Holofcener, and after the first episode, she said, “This is a horror movie.” I don’t think it’s a horror movie for kids, though. I think that kids — and also 20-somethings, because I did some feedback screenings with those groups — see themselves. I think the kids are saying: “We need to talk about this.” There’s one part where Sydney’s mom’s like, “I don’t want to go in my kids’ TikTok.” But what I’m trying to do is say, “We need to be in this business. We need to have them share their experience.” What I love is that the kids are the ones who are saying, “This is concerning.” They’re saying, “You need to pay attention.” By the way, the parents — and I’m guilty of this myself — are posting on Facebook, I did this, I did that, but not always realizing how toxic it is.
Right. Sydney’s mother talks about her own social media use, specifically Facebook. How much did you want to hear from the parents?
At first, I wasn’t planning on including the parents. I thought it was going to be more like Charlie Brown, where the parents don’t understand and they’re in the background. Sydney’s mother was a really important voice. I feel like the parents are responsible, loving parents for the most part and yet have no idea. It’s not that they don’t want to help their kids, it’s like they don’t know what’s going on and they don’t know how.
With Sydney’s mom, there was a scene that I filmed where Sydney’s mom was like, “Don’t wear that short skirt outside.” She is an enlightened woman who doesn’t like the sexualization, but it’s a really hard thing to come down on because there’s a feeling among girls, and I’ve seen this in my own capturing of feminism and new feminism, where girls feel like showing their bodies is their right and their self-expression and they want to own that. And from my generation of feminism, I feel like that is not your voice and that it may feel like self-expression, but actually, it’s making the body the primary expression of identity. I don’t think it is good for either girls or boys.
I really tried to not fault the parents because I feel like I also did not know what was going on with my kids. Like I said, I have to sit down at the table and be like, “Is BDSM really a trend” to my teenagers? I was sure they were going to say no, and when they said yes, I almost fell out of my chair.
What were those conversations like to get parents of the teen subjects in the film on board?
I think a lot of them looked at my other work and could see this isn’t entertainment. It’s purpose-driven, and not everybody opted in, but the ones who did saw it as an interesting opportunity. We started talking to kids and parents in spring 2021 and we didn’t start [filming] until August 2021. I’m really grateful to the kids and the families because it was a lot to ask.
What is the push and pull of wanting to provide this anthropological look at teen life today while, in turn, asking them to put themselves out there on, arguably, a more mainstream platform as a TV series?
For one, in terms of choosing kids, of course, one of the big subjects around social media is fame. And one of the things I was looking at was fame as a value and how values have shifted. Even when I was doing “Generation Wealth,” I was really struck by, when you ask kids what they want to be when they grow up, they say rich and famous instead of a particular job. So when I was looking for kids, I did try to correct for not bringing in kids that wanted to be in this project to be famous. It wasn’t as much of an issue as I thought, because I don’t think any of them thought that this was a way to be famous.
Jonathan films Sydney, 18, in her bedroom. He’s a videographer at his school and began to chronicle the other students in the group for his own documentary.
(Lauren Greenfield / Institute )
One of your teen subjects, Jonathan, also felt inspiration to make his own film, and there’s a bit of parallel documenting that happens. What piqued your interest about his approach or his perspective?
It’s a big thing when you allow yourself to be in a documentary, so I feel like everybody has to get something out of it. And lots of the kids were makers. Jonathan was the videographer for the school, and that was one of the things that was appealing about him. Plus, he had a different relationship with social media. He wasn’t a poster; I didn’t want everybody being big posters. And he was very serious about his filmmaking. And he wanted to interview kids from our group. He was on this parallel journey with me.
Jonathan offered a lot; he’s a very empathetic person in a time of narcissism and a culture of narcissism, and I think he’s part of what we need. Empathy is another antidote to narcissism and focusing a lot on yourself and being in this feedback loop with yourself.
What do you want audiences to take away after watching this documentary?
Empathy, connection. When they say at the end, “Here we are without phones; we’re just talking” — it’s so great. One time when I was watching that, I almost just started laughing because it’s like a revelation— we’re without phones, we’re talking and it’s so amazing.
It’s a really hard time to grow up. I do think kids show resilience and wisdom, but they do that in the face of a really challenging environment, and ultimately, the adults are responsible for this environment. That’s what I hope we take away: We need to do something about it, to protect kids, because it’s just not fair to ask them to protect themselves.
Kathy Hilton will no longer be the grand marshal of West Hollywood’s pride parade.
The city and WeHo Pride on Wednesday released a joint statement, announcing that “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” star would no longer serve as the Grand Marshal Icon for the 2026 WeHo Pride Parade. The event is scheduled for Sunday.
“After thoughtful discussions, the City of West Hollywood, the WeHo Pride production team, and Kathy Hilton have determined that the 2026 WeHo Pride Parade will not designate a Grand Marshal Icon honoree,” read the statement.
The decision comes less than a week after Hilton was announced. That May 28 announcement was met with swift backlash from the LGBTQ+ community and allies, who called out Hilton’s ties to President Trump and alleged MAGA-leaning politics. Critics also cited accusations that the socialite had used a homophobic slur while on a trip with other cast members of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” an action she has previously denied.
In their joint statement, West Hollywood and the WeHo Pride team expressed their appreciation for “the respectful and sincere dialogue” around both the event and the “role and significance” of Pride honorees.
“The City of West Hollywood has always believed that Pride belongs to the community,” the joint statement said. “Since its earliest days, Pride has served as both a celebration and a platform for activism, visibility, resilience, and the ongoing pursuit of equality, dignity, and justice for LGBTQ+ people. … These conversations reflect the passion people have for WeHo Pride and underscore the importance of ensuring that WeHo Pride continues to honor the history, values, and diverse voices of the LGBTQ+ community.”
In a statement, Hilton expressed gratitude for being considered for grand marshal and reaffirmed her commitment to the LGBTQ+ community and causes.
“My reason for wanting to be involved in this year’s WeHo Pride weekend was simple: to celebrate, support, and share in the joy of a community that means a great deal to so many people,” Hilton said. “Pride is, and always will be, about celebrating and uplifting LGBTQ+ voices, experiences, and achievements. … My support for the community and WeHo Pride is unwavering.”
She also mentioned several queer advocacy organizations and events she has supported over the years, including GLAAD, the Elton John AIDS Foundation, the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation, Dr. Mathilde Krim, God’s Love We Deliver and Project Angel Food.
The latest Pride-related dust-up follows the abrupt cancellation of the Long Beach Pride Festival in May. The city’s Pride Parade took place as planned.
Both snafus have occurred as conservative politicians and advocates continue to attack LGBTQ+ rights and visibility nationwide. Some Republican governors have even pushed for conservative alternatives to Pride month festivities. A recent Gallup poll has found that after years of steady gains, support for marriage equality and same-sex relationships has slipped, particularly among Republicans.
Movie Reviews
Movie Review: Travolta’s “Propeller: One-Way Night Coach” is One for the Ages — All Ages
Back in the good ol’days — the ’90s — John Travolta would love to get off the topic of “Michael,” “Pulp Fiction” or “Get Shorty” in interviews with film journalists like me and regale us with how utterly besotted he had been with his first flying experience, how that drove his passion for piloting and buying planes and airfield-adjacent luxury houses.
He didn’t even seem to mind having to move house when this or that development balked at him flying his Boeing 707 out of there on the way to locations.
Travolta would tell any journalist who asked that he was writing a kid-friendly book, “Propeller: One Way Night Coach,” based on his first flights as a child in old propeller driven airliners — cheap red-eye overnight treks with too many connections for your average jet age traveller to tolerate.
I remember picking up the book when it came out later in the ’90s — at an airport gift shop — and thinking “Well, that’s as cute as I figured.”
And now, decades later and trapped in the B-movie hell of his post “Gotti” career, Travolta’s turned that cute book into the most delightful, fanciful and colorful bon bon of a movie.
“One Way Night Coach” is a child’s fantasy of flight and flying the way it used to be — with pristine, uncrowded, futuristic airports, an early ’60s era of jets and prop planes with over-uniformed stewardesses in white gloves, the days “Back before every Joe Sweatsock could wedge himself behind a lunch tray and jet off to Raleigh-Durham,” as Sideshow Bob memorably sneered on “The Simpsons’.”
It’s a fictionalized account of Travolta’s childhood about an only child (at least two Travolta siblings have bit parts in this movie) of a never-made-it/never-will actress/single-mom (Kelly Eviston-Quinnett) who indulges her aviation-obsessed eight-year-old with a cheap cross-country overnight flight.
Little Jeff (Clark Shotwell) will revel in almost every Idlewild to Pittsburgh to Dayton to Chicago to Kansas City to Denver and Los Angeles minute. He strolls into the cockpit to meet pilots, charms the stewardesses and checks out the sleeping bunks on the TWA Lockheed Super Constellation, loving even the delays if not the Chicken Cordon Bleu he’s offered on legs of the journey that offer a meal.
And as he’s an observant child, he comments (Travolta narrates) on his 50ish mother’s vamping and posing, her choice of cigarettes (Newports) and drinks, the solo traveling men whose attention she pursues and earns.
“I was her best audience,” adult Jeff remembers of the mother who’d read him plays as bedtime stories and delusionally hopes that this trip to Los Angeles might be her “big break” even though she’s pushing 50.
“Hollywood called,” she’d explain about their overnight cheap flight arrangements to ticket agents and crew. “They told me to take the next flight!”
At every turn, Jeff meets or sees kindness — stewardesses who indulge his many questions and bump them up to first class on the mostly-empty planes, a captain who fixes his toy model of a Constellation, a mentally ill flyer who flips out but is calmed by a flight attendant who isn’t overworked and frazzled in jet-powered tin-can jammed with Joe and Jane Sweatsocks who think nothing of traveling in their pajamas.
Normally, I cringe at pictures this reliant on voice-over narration. I recoil from stars who populate their picture with Sandler etc. offspring. But “Propeller” is unfailingly sweet and never cloying.
Sure, it’s fictionalized. But if you’ve followed Travolta’s life and career, a lot of him is in this — his raptoruous engagement with flying, an indulged child who developed a taste for fine food and creature comforts, a mother who was his guiding star as an actor.
I get why there are less adoring reviews than mine floating around “Propeller.” It’s unfailingly sweet. Mom’s man-hunting is seriously dated. This TWA tale is decorated with Gershwin’s majestic “Rhapsody in Blue” — United Airlines’ signature tune. And Travolta’s been around long enough for recent generations to come up and not feel a connection to the “Saturday Night Fever/Get Shorty” star whose career has fallen off and life has been visited by too much tragedy.
But I’d hate to be seated next to anybody who doesn’t appreciate this adorable, pristine and nearly perfect aviation fantasy on any flight, much less an overnight one.
Rating: TV-PG
Cast: Clark Shotwell, Kelly Eviston-Quinnett, Ellen Travolta, Ella Beau Travolta, Olga Hoffmann and John Travolta.
Credits: Scripted and directed by John Travolta, based on his book. An Apple TV+ release.
Running time: 1:01
Three years ago, Mattel Inc. struck box-office gold — or rather, pink — with the billion-dollar success of “Barbie.”
In its first return to theaters since the female-forward phenomenon, the El Segundo toymaker is turning to the brawny He-Man for another box-office lift.
Its latest film, “Masters of the Universe,” opens this weekend, as Mattel looks to build on that previous success and continue extending its signature toy brands into the entertainment arena.
“The movie is very much in tune with culture,” said Mattel Chief Executive Ynon Kreiz. “Everything is much more contemporary relative to what was created more than 40 years ago, but it’s still very true to the origin story and to the DNA of the brand.”
The new film arrives at a pivotal time for Mattel, which is facing pressure from investors to grow its business. The maker of Hot Wheels, American Girl and Uno has recently confronted a challenging market for toys, beset by tariffs on goods produced overseas and weaker-than-expected demand for Barbie dolls and Fisher-Price preschool products.
Amid uncertainty in the toy market and the fallout from tariffs, Mattel’s net income dropped 25% to $398 million in 2025. And since the company announced disappointing holiday sales totals in February, its stock has dropped more than 30%, closing at $14.34 on Wednesday.
“Masters of the Universe” toys at Mattel headquarters in El Segundo.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
The share price slide prompted investor Southeastern Asset Management to send a letter last month to Mattel leadership suggesting the toy maker should sell itself and go private. Southeastern manages about 4% of the company’s stock on behalf of its clients.
“The frustration among investors has been the fact that if you look at the business from 2021 through 2025 and even this year … the business really hasn’t grown,” said Eric Handler, a Roth Capital senior media and entertainment analyst, referring to Mattel. “This is a company that needed something fresh in the portfolio, and there’s a wide range of investments being made, of which ‘Masters of the Universe’ is one part.”
Kreiz pushed back on the idea that the company is not growing. In the fourth quarter of 2025, net sales were up 7% to $1.8 billion, though the result was not as strong as the company expected.
Mattel has spent $1.2 billion in the last three years to buy back shares, with an additional $1.5-billion share repurchase planned for the next three years.
“We’re investing in our own stock because we believe it is undervalued,” he told The Times in an interview at his office, which has floor-to-ceiling windows that give an expansive view of El Segundo. “We absolutely agree that the share price doesn’t reflect the progress that we’ve achieved over the last few years financially, operationally, our place in culture, the strength of our brands, and the continued expansion of the business. And more importantly, the potential that we have down the road.”
“Masters of the Universe” is a key variable in that equation.
Ynon Kreiz, chief executive of Mattel.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
The movie, which had a budget of roughly $170 million, is expected to bring in $25 million to $35 million in the U.S. and Canada during its debut weekend. That’s a far cry from the $162-million opening haul of “Barbie,” but box-office analysts say that film captured the cultural zeitgeist in a way that’s hard to replicate.
The ‘80s-era “Masters of the Universe” is “a property that was famous with a certain group of fans, but it hasn’t had much of a pop culture presence,” said Shawn Robbins, who directs movie analytics at Fandango and founded the forecasting site Box Office Theory. The movie has notched a respectable 74% approval rating from critics on aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.
“There’s been so many callbacks to nostalgic franchises,” he said. “Some people are always on board for them, and maybe the positive reviews bring people in who were on the fence. But people are also ready for something fresh and new and exciting.”
Kreiz said he’s often asked how the company will match the success of “Barbie.”
“The answer is, we don’t need to match ‘Barbie’s’ success for movies to have a meaningful economic impact on the company,” he said. “Not every movie will be ‘Barbie.’ If we create quality content that people want to watch and create quality experiences that people are engaged with, good things happen, and these brands will resonate and will be here for years to come.”
While theatrical revenue is important, the measure of success for “Masters of the Universe” could also include its eventual reception on streaming platforms and, of course, toy sales, analysts said.
There are hundreds of products tied to the movie, from collectible action figures of Nicholas Galitzine’s He-Man and Camila Mendes’ Teela, to branded Uno decks, Legos, clothing and skateboards.
Skeletor from “Masters of the Universe.”
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
“For us, it’s a huge win already,” said Robbie Brenner, president of Mattel Studios and chief content officer, who also served as a producer on the film. “We have reinvigorated and relaunched this brand that has been around for decades … and done it in a way with just the best-in-class toys. Obviously that’s our bread and butter. And then to have made an epic, incredible movie … is a huge win.”
While Mattel does not yet have sales totals for its “Masters of the Universe” toys, executives said during an earnings call in late April that product sales were “growing double digits” amid strong customer demand, particularly from adults.
When Kreiz was named CEO in 2018, he saw the potential for Mattel to expand beyond toys. In an entertainment landscape dominated by known franchises and intellectual property, the former TV and media executive wanted to leverage the company’s IP in new ways to attract consumers.
Hence, Mattel has expanded into real-world experiences such as a Barbie pop-up at Coachella or a traveling Hot Wheels monster truck show. In February, the company fully acquired Mattel163 mobile game studio after buying out a stake held by Chinese tech firm NetEase. The studio has released games based on Uno, Skip-Bo and other Mattel intellectual property.
And on the film and television front, the Mattel Studios division now has 51 people — most of whom are based in El Segundo — focused on projects across platforms.
After “Masters of the Universe,” Mattel Studios plans to release a “Matchbox” streaming movie in October. The division has more than a dozen films in development that have been announced, including an American Girl movie with Paramount, Polly Pocket with Amazon MGM Studios, as well as a live-action Magic 8 Ball series from M. Night Shyamalan.
“The journey for the company was to evolve from being a toy manufacturer that was making items to become an IP company that is managing franchises,” Kreiz said. “It’s not that we’re not creating toys — it’s obviously a big part of our business — but the opportunity is to expand so much more than the physical product.”
“Masters of the Universe” was in development for years at several different studios before it was picked up by Amazon MGM.
That partnership stemmed from Mattel’s work on the “Barbie” movie with Courtenay Valenti, then president of production and development at Warner Bros. Pictures who is now head of film at Amazon MGM.
“Masters of the Universe” felt like a good property for Mattel to bet on because of its nostalgia factor and deep bench of colorful characters, from the green tiger Battle Cat to the heavily armored Ram Man and ever meme-able Skeletor, which the company hopes will attract new audiences, Brenner said.
The movie is directed by Travis Knight — chief executive of stop-motion studio Laika who also led the 2018 “Transformers” spin-off “Bumblebee” — who Brenner said “nailed” the narrative’s tone. (It didn’t hurt that Knight was already a fan of the franchise and had sported the He-Man haircut as a child.)
“It’s a property that’s kind of out there,” said Brenner, who grew up watching He-Man and his twin sister She-Ra. “It’s got all these crazy characters. But just riding that line between what is funny and kind of irreverent and then kind of heartfelt, that is a very hard thing to put in a blender and to get right.”
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Kathy Hilton won’t be WeHo Pride’s grand marshal after backlash from community
