Ayo Edebiri has signed on to write down a brand new live-action Barney movie, and is in talks to star within the challenge as effectively.
The movie can be produced by A24 and Daniel Kaluuya’s 59% productions, together with Mattel Movies, who lately developed Barbie. Per Selection, Kaluuya will function an government producer however is not going to star within the movie, and plot particulars stay unknown.
The challenge was first introduced in 2019, 9 years after Barney & Pals wrapped its authentic 14 season run. Mattel’s Robbie Brenner expressed pleasure to have Kaluuya within the fold, saying that the studio may take a “fully new strategy to Barney that may shock audiences and subvert expectations.”
Again in 2023, the movie was rumored to have an “A24-type” strategy with a “surrealist” edge, however Mattel have since backtracked on the declare. Mattel can be behind the brand new CGI reboot of Barney that arrived on Max in October 2024, and informed Selection that the brand new live-action movie’s plot would differ from the animated collection.
Edebiri has continued her sizzling streak into 2025, directing the music video for Clairo’s “Terrapin” and starring in A24’s upcoming psychological horror movie, Opus, which arrives in April.
Barney isn’t the one nostalgic property that Mattel is making a film out of. They’re additionally producing a live-action View-Grasp movie, a brand new film centered on the American Lady Dolls, and a JJ Abrams-directed Scorching Wheels film.