Vin Diesel is stepping out of the Fast franchise and into the arms of toy maker Mattel with a Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots flick. This is among one of the 14 movies in active development within the Mattel film division.
According to Variety, perhaps unsurprisingly, the movie’s production will be handled by Universal, Beast’s Ryan Engle writes the script, and the Fast star will lead. He’s also apparently excited, though we didn’t hear that from him, but rather by Mattel Films’ Oscar-nominated producer, Robbie Brenner.
Brenner leads the studio and told the outlet that they were all hoping Barbie would be a massive success so they could explore other ideas, including sequels and spin-offs. Franchises like Barney, Hot Wheels, Polly Pocket, Matchbox, UNO — yes, that UNO — are also getting films to basically make sort of MTCU — Mattel Toy Cinematic Universe.
Barbie’s immense success does give the toy maker confidence that other movies based on their beloved IPs could find a lot of success. It is concerning, though, that they have so many projects in active development, on top of that, Barbie has something that the other toy-branded films don’t — it’s a really popular toy, even to this day.
Over half of Mattel’s profit comes from the Barbie brand, so it’s kind of a big deal.
Gabriel enjoys all things entertainment from writing about video games as the Managing Editor for PSX Extreme to covering the latest film and TV news for his own publication — Early Reel. Follow him on X.