Bad news for everyone hoping to get a second wear out of all the doll-themed outfits they bought last summer. Lena Dunham just announced that she was stepping away from her Polly Pocket adaptation, which was set to star Lily Collins. For what it’s worth, Mattel hasn’t canceled the project altogether—it just won’t be moving forward with Dunham, and the company wished her the best in a statement to The A.V. Club. They also clarified that Collins was still attached.
“I’m going to tell you something here that I haven’t told anyone: I’m not going to make the Polly Pocket movie,” Dunham told The New Yorker in a story published this morning. “I wrote a script, and I was working on it for three years. But I remember someone once said to me about Nancy Meyers: The thing that’s the most amazing about her is that the movie she makes or the movie she would be making with or without a studio, with or without notes—that somehow her taste manages to intersect perfectly with what the world wants. What a fucking gift that is. And Nora Ephron, too, who was such a mentor to me, but always said, ‘Go be weird. Don’t kowtow to anyone.’ And I think Greta [Gerwig] managed this incredible feat [with Barbie], which was to make this thing that was literally candy to so many different kinds of people and was perfectly and divinely Greta. And I just—I felt like, unless I can do it that way, I’m not going to do it. I don’t think I have that in me.”
While she’s best known for Girls, Dunham has also written and directed multiple features like Catherine Called Birdy and Sharp Stick, both of which our staff considers pretty underrated. “I feel like the next movie I make needs to feel like a movie that I absolutely have to make. No one but me could make it. And I did think other people could make Polly Pocket,” she continued.
She’s not wrong, at least from a branding perspective. Mattel currently has a full toy chest of films in the works, from an A24-type Barney movie starring Daniel Kaluuya, to J.J. Abrams’ take on Hot Wheels. Maybe someone new will also take over for Polly as well, following in the grand tradition set by Amy Schumer’s initial failed Barbie script.
For now, Dunham is focusing on her Netflix series, Too Much, and an upcoming show focusing on college-aged spies. She’s also not ruling out other mainstream projects. “I think the thing I would really like to tackle next is trying to make a film that’s distinctly commercial but also maintains the DNA of what is interesting to me,” she said. “I think it’s another romantic comedy. Right now, I’m so full of, as my grandmother would say, piss and vinegar that I really want to focus. I also have a few TV projects going that are more commercial.”
This story has been updated to include a statement from Mattel.