The Reese Witherspoon-aissance has had mixed success so far. The actress produced global hit “Gone Girl,” and won an Oscar nomination for the well-received “Wild,” as well as cropping up in “Inherent Vice;” but “The Good Lie” disappeared without a trace, and this summer’s “Hot Pursuit” failed to give her a comedy smash to sit with earlier films like “Legally Blonde” and “Sweet Home Alabama.”
Nevertheless, the actress continues to mix work with top auteurs and self-developed projects, and she’s just found a potential doozy in the second category, as The Hollywood Reporter reveal that the actress is developing a movie, through her Pacific Standard company, about Ruth Handler, the creator of Barbie.
The actress has optioned the 2010 Robin Gerber book “Barbie And Ruth: The Story Of The World’s Most Famous Doll And The Woman Who Created Her,” with Witherspoon likely to both produce and star. Handler, who passed away in 2002, was the president of Mattel, and created a doll, named after her daughter, that’s sold over a billion toys to date and become an icon.
There’s actually another “Barbie” movie in the works, with a live-action Diablo Cody-penned take at Sony already set for release in summer 2017. If there’s enough drama in Handler’s story, this does sound like a potentially killer role for Witherspoon, one that she’s entirely suited for, although her best-case scenario for this is essentially an extended remake of “The Simpsons” classic “Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy.”