RECENTLY MY MOTHER WAS GATHERING UP THE LAST OF MY CHILDHOOD TOYS in a bin bag, for me to either pass on to my own kids or dispense with. It happened to be just at that moment in the summer when Barbie was making a fortune at the box office. Greta Gerwig’s movie about a Mattel-made doll was a sensation, and dozens of other toy-to-screen adaptations were said to be coming in Barbie’s wake, for instance a Lena Dunham-written version of the 1990s toy line Polly Pocket and JJ Abrams ’ take on those miniature Hot Wheels cars. Film-makers and other creatives were looking again at the playthings of their youth to see what brilliant contemporary stories might be spun out of He-Man, Thomas the Tank Engine, Cluedo and Uno. I peered inside my toy bag: an assortment of action figures that smelled of perished rubber, Thatcher-era dust and now (unless I was getting ahead of myself) life-altering possibility. Was a piece of billion-dollar intellectual property (IP) sitting right here in my lap?
I was amazed at the level of random detail I could still remember about my He-Man henchman, my StarCom commanders, my average GI Joes. There were toys in the bag from well-known lines such as Hasbro’s Transformers and Kenner’s Ghostbusters, as well as those that reached further and further into obscurity or discontinuation. Maybe there was untapped potential in one of the tiny rubber monsters from the Monster in My Pocket range. Or how about the larger, shades-wearing rodents from the Biker Mice from Mars? Similar ambitious discussions will have taken place in boardrooms and writers’ rooms ever since Barbie struck big.
Hollywood can be relied on to learn lessons (not always the best ones) from movies that make money. There is a movie about Magic 8 Ball in development.
