mattel – The News Desk

Move over, “Barbie” — Mattel announces plans for American Girl doll movie

14Dec

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Entertainment

Move over, “Barbie” — Mattel announces plans for American Girl doll movie

Another movie based on a doll could be hitting the big screen: Toy company Mattel is developing a live-action film based on its American Girl doll line. The announcement comes in the wake of the "Barbie" movie, which brought in more than a billion dollars worldwide and was the highest-grossing movie of the year. Lindsey Anderson Beer, who wrote and executive produced "Sierra Burgess is a Loser" and directed "Pet Sematary: Bloodlines," is set to produce and write the screenplay for the American Girl doll movie."Growing up, my sister and I were American Girl girls. I had Kirsten, and she had Molly," Anderson Beer said in the Wednesday announcement. "They didn't feel like dolls to play with, rather real people whose worlds we got to imagine ourselves in. They are historically accurate toys a...

Hasbro Layoffs: Toy Company to Cut Nearly 20% of Workforce

11Dec

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World

Hasbro Layoffs: Toy Company to Cut Nearly 20% of Workforce

Updated Dec. 11, 2023 5:37 pm ETHasbro is cutting nearly 20% of its workforce as weak sales for toys and games persist into the critical holiday shopping period. The maker of Transformers action figures, the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy game and Monopoly will cut about 1,100 jobs, on top of 800 layoffs earlier this year, Chief Executive Chris Cocks said Monday in a memo to employees viewed by The Wall Street Journal. Hasbro reported having about 6,500 employees as of the end of 2022.Copyright ©2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

Mattel walked back pledge to donate millions to UCLA children’s hospital, lawsuit claims

16Nov

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Money

Mattel walked back pledge to donate millions to UCLA children’s hospital, lawsuit claims

Mattel, the toy company that owns huge franchises like Hot Wheels and Barbie, is facing a new lawsuit brought by UCLA and its health system, claiming the company failed to make good on a pledge to donate $50 million to the university's children's hospital. The company had pledged and completed large donations to the UCLA children's hospital before. Mattel formed a partnership with the university in 1998 and, in exchange for the hospital bearing Mattel's name per the terms of an agreement, donated $25 million to the hospital over a period of time, according to the complaint filed Nov. 19 in Los Angeles and obtained Wednesday by CBS News.Mattel and UCLA entered into another, similar agreement in 2017, the lawsuit says. The toy company pledged to donate $49 million to the children's hospital...

29Jul

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Entertainment

Why Barbie Must Be Punished

My childhood Barbies were always in trouble. I was constantly giving them diagnoses of rare diseases, performing risky surgeries to cure them, or else kidnapping them—jamming them into the deepest reaches of my closet, without plastic food or plastic water, so they could be saved again, returned to their plastic doll-cakes and their slightly-too-small wooden home. (My mother had drawn her lines in the sand; we had no Dreamhouse.) My abusive behavior was nothing special. Most girls I know liked to mess their Barbies up; and when it comes to child’s play, crisis is hardly unusual. It’s a way to make sense of the thrills and terrors of autonomy, the problem of other people’s desires, the brute force of parental disapproval. But there was something about Barbie that especially demanded crisis...