With its eccentric jokes and bright pink scenery, Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie was a breath of fresh air for many audiences – but it wasn’t always going to be that way.
It has emerged that the director tried to get a “fart opera” scene into the film – but it didn’t make the final cut.
Speaking to IndieWire, director Gerwig and the film’s editor Nick Houy said that across the three films they have collaborated on (Lady Bird, Little Women and Barbie) they have always tried to sneak in a fart joke.
Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter
Sadly for fans of toilet humour, none of the jokes have ever made it into the final versions of the films.
Gerwig said: “We’ve always tried to get in a proper fart joke and we’ve never done it. We had like a fart opera in the middle [of Barbie]. I thought it was really funny. And that was not the consensus.”
“It was in the wrong place, too,” Houy added. “We need to work it into a more significant narrative moment next time.” Neither said where the “fart opera” would have fit into the film.
Houy said: “We were just, like, ‘Let’s put it in front of people and see how they react.’ Everyone’s different and every screening’s different and we’ve definitely learned, over the years, that you really have to let things have their fair chance and then act accordingly. Once you know it’s dead, you have got to get it out of there.”
Barbie was one of the most hotly anticipated movies of recent times, starring Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, Kate McKinnon, Michael Cera, Dua Lipa, Will Ferrell, America Ferrera, Emma Mackey, Hari Nef, Sharon Rooney and more.
On its opening it didn’t disappoint, becoming the biggest first weekend for a film by a female director, grossing $162m over its first three days.
Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.
