If you had an utterance that included Daniel Kaluuya, Barney the Dinosaur, and “A24-type” on your 2023 bingo cards, please point me in the direction of your preferred supplier of such cards, because this sounds like an absolute blast.
We’ve known about Kaluuya’s elusive Barney project for years, with the Judah and the Black Messiah star having teased time and again that this won’t be a film for children, to put it lightly. And while his involvement alone indicates that this won’t be a creative hack job à la Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, we never really got the specifics about what an adult Barney project would look like.
In a recent interview with The New Yorker, Mattel Films vice president Kevin McKeon divulged his excitement for the gritty Barney, in which he compared its ethos to that of a “surrealistic” A24 offering, and further described it as being about millennial angst, with the title character serving as a sort of emotional MacGuffin or scapegoat.
“We’re leaning into the millennial angst of the property rather than fine-tuning this for kids. It’s really a play for adults. Not that it’s R-rated, but it’ll focus on some of the trials and tribulations of being thirtysomething, growing up with Barney—just the level of disenchantment within the generation.”
It’s a bold route, to be sure; even in the age of this late post-capitalist meme hell, using Barney as a conduit for unpacking a generation’s life experience is itself an idea that could only be dreamed up in a surreal headspace. Nevertheless, Kaluuya has never given us a reason to doubt him before, and while we doubt it will reach the heights of fellow Mattel piece Barbie, we mustn’t forget that art never truly triumphs when it takes the meek route, so I’ll personally be cheering for it up to and including its theatrical bow, assuming it gets one.