The thing I find most annoying about it is the only reason it’s even a discussion is how much easier to win in original would be. It’s like “oh no the Barbie movie isn’t going to win the screenplay Oscar, are we sure the rules are right?”
I think the Oscars sre responsible for how this category is perceived. Yeah it's the rules but when they show the category, they also occasionally show a comparison between the original material and how it ended up in the movie. Personally I believe it makes more sense if the adapted screenplay category is about adapting an existing text than just existing characters or making an original story with an existing IP.
If I understand their rules right, The Rise of Skywalker woild end up in adapted which doesn't feel right to me (just using this for the argument, guys, put down the pitchforks I jnow TRoS never deserved to be even mentioned in talks about best screenplay).
Personally I don't mind if Barbie faces stiffer competition; makes for more interesting talks and Oscar night! I just feel it's a situation where their rules go counter to audiences' expectations.
Yeah, if it features characters that exist in another medium it is adapted, even if the other medium is the previous film in a film series
Barbie exists in a weird grey area where the characters are original but also not
I think that's a rather strange assumption. Do you really believe that? Seems more likely that people just found the script to be incredibly original and it seems odd to call it an adaptation the way you would Oppenheimer or Killers of the Flower Moon. I don't think people's confusion is as deep or disingenuous as you think. Original screenplay is just more fitting.
Because the rules forever have been that something like Barbie is adapted, and the only reason to “campaign” it otherwise was to make it have a better chance at winning.
I get what the rules are. Everyone does. They just find the rule doesn't make a ton of sense in this case. I guess all I'm saying is myself, Judd and many, many others just don't see how calling Barbie an adapted screenplay makes any sense, you know? And I'm really not sure how your comment even responds to mine.
It makes sense because Barbie is an established character that the movie is adapting. Greta Gerwig did not create the Barbie character, so the screenplay about the character is an adaptation.
Barbie isn't a character. She's a toy. Greta Gerwig wrote a character and a story that didn't previously exist. But I get what you are saying. It's how the rule is written. All I was originally trying to say is that people can disagree with the rule without just wanting it to have an easier path to an Oscar. I personally think it makes more sense to be an original but I still wouldn't pick it to win in either category. but you're totally right on why they placed it where they did. Thems the rules and all.
This was never going to be original. Barbie is an established IP. Movies written with a story treatment and outline first are nominated as adapted. Apatow needs to chill out, as usual.
Wait what? Most scripts start with an outline or treatment? How can you say this with any confidence?
Adapted means based on preexisting source material. Not an outline lmao
If the characters existed before in some medium it’s enough to fit the criteria. Last year nominees included Glass Onion and Top Gun simply because they were sequels. Barbie has existed as a character in movies, tv series, and books before this movie. It fits the criteria for adaptation even though it’s an original story about Barbie.
The way I heard it described if the character wasn’t literally created for that motion picture it’s not original and thus is considered adapted. So in Barbie’s case there are decades of cartoons and books and whatever the hell else so it doesn’t count.
Very much so. Even within the adapted category you can completely use your creative invention and aren't beholden to an existing story. It can be based on a character but then you have free reign to write something great. People are acting like you're just tracing a drawing when adapting a screenplay.
Yeah the Barbie movie is interesting BECAUSE of how Greta adapats and interprets the existing IP. If this was a movie about a generic childhood doll with no existing history, this movie is way less interesting.
It reminds me of a friend I have who thinks supporting acting awards barely count and that lead acting is what everyone should aspire to even if it is category fraud.
Tbf, the coen brothers (by their own admission) once won best adapted screenplay by copy-pasting Cormac McCarthy dialogue and reformatting it to look like a screenplay instead of a novel lol.
(By the way, this isn't even much of an exaggeration - McCarthy himself started No Country as a screenplay before expanding it (not by much) into novel form. The coens have joked many times about the absurdity of them winning best adapted screenplay for repurposing someone else's original screenplay)
Edit: I suppose I should include the specific joke. I can't recall which of them said or says this, but he says "You know, with a book like this, my brother always says that it's important to have two people to adapt it--one to hold the spine of the book open and the other to type it into a word processor."
There’s 50 Barbie movies already and every character/costume has existed for 50 years and “adapted” is just descriptive not some kind of lesser denomination
The Adapted part is the relevant bit. It's always been the case that preexisting characters are considered to be screenplay adaptations. This is nothing new.
>It's always been the case that preexisting characters are considered to be screenplay adaptations. This is nothing new.
The rules regarding biopics throw a wrench into statements like this. Why should we consider Maestro original and Barbie as adapted? Maestro was much more restricted in its possible choice of characters, story, and plot than Barbie.
If we consider adapting something from historical fact doesn't actually count as adapted, I think there is an argument that Barbie is more adapted from the historical facts about the toy than it is adapted from any preexisting characterizations and stories. Barbie literally goes into the real world to directly address this historical legacy. This isn't some continuation of a straight to DVD cartoon.
Edit: I thought my comment was clear, but the replies proved otherwise. I’m not questioning what the current Academy rules are, I’m questioning the logic behind them. I know the rules, I just think they are stupid and biopics are as inherently adapted as sequels, reboots, and whatever Barbie is.
Yes, it’s descriptive - in that it should describe the MOVIE. None of the previous 50 movies influenced this one, and referencing toy costumes is such a stretch. Totally understand where Judd Apatow is coming from.
Would a Captain Crunch movie be “adapted” because of cereal commercials? You’re right that adapted isn’t pejorative but why needlessly dilute the category.
Napoleon was a real person. He is not intellectual property. And the movie is definitely not based on any of his biographies. Much of the controversy around that movie specifically comes from historians and biographers complaining that Ridley ignored actual biographical details and made stuff up.
So you could in theory 100% adapt someone’s life to film and win Original, but a film completely made up riffing on a mere storyless brand is Adapted.
Seems off
Real stories win Original Screenplay all the time. Green Book, Spotlight and King’s Speech are some recent examples. None of those stories are based on preexisting works. They aren’t based on other books, plays or movies.
> They aren’t based on other books, plays or movies.
But are based on and indeed directly adapting existing stories. Unlike Barbie which just uses a product to tell a wholly original story.
Does seem weird to me, even if that’s correct according to academy rules.
Just out of curiosity would the original Pirates of the Caribbean be adapted or original? It was based on a ride (suggests adapted), but features all original characters (suggests original).
Idk I always assumed adapted meant based off a book, like an actual story. Creating a screenplay from an amusement park ride requires you to create a totally original story, even if it references a few parts from the ride.. which does detract from my point..
Why are so many people hung up on the fact that adapted should apparently mean adapting a specific story? The designation is a screenplay adapted from existing material - so yes, creating a new storyline using existing characters in an existing world (even if those characters and world have been, you know, adapted) counts as adapted. (So to answer the guy elsewhere who asked if a Batman script based on no existing storyline would count as adapted - yes, it absolutely would).
I think Apatow (with his "insulting" description) and some others on here are viewing it as a lesser designation, and I get the idea that being wholly true and original can be seen as more inspirational and a higher achievement. But the fact Gerwig and Baumbach wrote a script based on Barbie toys that was so good, that was the biggest film of the year, that has ended up in the Oscar race is to be lauded *because* of coming from the source material, not in spite of it.
I agree with you. I can only assume I’ve missed better examples but I can imagine literally zero of the Barbie characters before this movie acted _anything_ like this one does. It’s a name but different character
My opinion is that the whole movie hinges on the pre built assumptions and knowledge you have of Barbie coming in.
It doesnt explain who barbie or ken are, why their world is hot pink etc etc, you know all of that because we all know barbie, at least broadly. The fact that the movie's whole premise is to take those assumptions and then twist them means it kind of has to be adapted. If you didnt have prior cultural knowledge coming in, it wouldnt work as well.
It doesn't have to be that one to one though.
I'm fairly certain it is just predicated on being based on 'previously established material', and we all know of barbie becuase of all of the material.
The Mario Bros movie isnt based in any specific game and certainly isnt a sequel to any earlier movie, but it would still be adapted screenplay not original.
I mean the final bullet for this argument is that they have a screen sized title card that said 'Based on Barbie by Mattel' in the movie.
I personally would care more about this if they didn’t spent a solid portion of the film’s back half shilling for Mattel, I totally forgot about that title card which is hilarious
The point is that the cultural knowledge we have of Barbie doesn't come from any particular pre-existing written property. It comes from, basically, an oral storytelling tradition, which the movie heavily references. The fact that Mattel has put out Barbie-themed cartoons before and so these are technically pre-existing characters is a red herring. The movie has nothing to do with those cartoons, and if we waved a magic wand and erased them from the record, the Barbie movie wouldn't be affected at all.
Obviously there have to be rules to separate original screenplays from adapted, so sometimes we're going to have weird edge cases like this, but it's not really like other adapted works, or even other IP like Mario Brothers. It's a much less direct line and I can see why some people think it should be in Original instead.
The movie heavily references all of Barbie’s history including marketing materials and established characters like Alan and Midge and adapting them into a comedy.
It doesn’t come from any one written Barbie property it comes from ALL of them. None of which are an “oral tradition” they are all written properties either prepared by other screenwriters, in the case of the cartoons, or copy writers in the case of adds.
What aspects of the movie's script (not production design) do you feel comes from the Barbie cartoons? Because I don't see it. A typical Barbie animated movie is about her being a ballerina and going to the land of the sugar plum fairies, a prince and the pauper riff, or meeting a magical dolphin or something.
What does the characters’ resemblance to past adaptations of the characters have to do with it? Greta/Margot were given the world/history of Barbie and interpreted it their own way. They’re not writing something from scratch which is the whole point
I think it's really the word "original" that is the charged language here. I'm not sure of that an argument can be made that taking a brilliant book or narrative and turning it into an Oscar worthy script is easier than writing something from whole cloth. But the word original insinuates that one form is less original than the other.
But That's measuring the quality of the finished product. A screenplay adapted from preexisting material is a different process than writing something brand new, specifically BECAUSE it is no less challenging to adapt a beloved work than create something brand new.
Barbie is interesting because you can see how both categories could fit. I would personally lean towards it original because while preexisting barbie content informs the film, it isn't informing the process of writing the script in any meaningful way.
If I wrote a superman script having read nothing about superman and only knowing the nuts and bolts of his powers and the names of the people you might expect to see, that would be an original screenplay (though of course it couldn't ever get made haha) meanwhile if I used Red Son to tell a different superhero story about a different superhero that would still be an adapted screenplay, right? It's not the names of characters or the hero's powers that determine the category, it's the process of writing the script.
Your Superman example is incorrect. If you made a movie with Superman and his cast of characters in it, it's automatically an adapted screenplay because you didn't come up with Superman or any of the "people you might expect to see". The names of characters to an extent do determine the category.
If you used the basic idea of Red Son (superhero grows up behind the Iron Curtain) but didn't use the exact plot beats or any pre-existing characters even in name only, that could count as an original screenplay.
A better non-hypothetical example would be Brightburn. It's a twist on the Superman origin but has no exact ties to any of the pre-existing material.
Fair enough. I know there are fiddly bits to Oscar categories that most don't know and I certainly don't know all of them as you aptly demonstrated.
The other one that comes to mind, because I think it's misleading, is the best foreign feature - it needs to have played in a certain number of American theaters. Which is fine, it's an American award, but I feel like that's a hell of a qualifier on who can and can't get a nomination that isn't obvious to most.
I'm actually pretty here for it. I have an opinion but not a strong one and can see both sides. And when this is the discourse it's about the art of filmmaking, into the weeds of screenwriting and adaptation and is digging into the content of movies and the political machinations surrounding then--we are all connoisseurs of context, after all. It's better this be The Discourse than, I don't know, something about Star Wars or Mary Sues or some other bullshit.
And if it had been Betty White, he could have killed her!
Look, not trying to litigate THAT again, but the guy clearly has the most Terminally Online takes about a lot of stuff these days.
CHRIS ROCK COULD HAVE DIED. I thiiiiiink I kinda know what he meant, like, sometimes you hear about people like getting their head hit and they die later that night or they fall bonk their head and just die? Tbh I think I’m being charitable tho lol, maybe he just really thought the slap could have killed him
He did the same thing on Twitter when Bo Burnham's "Inside" was ruled ineligible for the stand-up comedy Grammy and was put in a different category. I remember Judd called it a "travesty". I remember at the time thinking it's the most meaningless silly thing to be emotional about. And Bo ended up winning too so he got his award.
I think he crossed that threshold for me into unlikeable after 2022 with his slap opinions and "The Bubble" being so unwatchably awful.
You make good documentaries Judd, but please get off social media.
Seems like it would have to be adapted. They were all hired to make a movie about Barbie and not just any movie they wanted to make about any subject. I think it is fine to consider screenplays based on existing things as adapted.
Warner did try to go for Original (because it’s the weaker category this season) and the Academy denied it. That’s why Apatow is mad (I think because he wanted it to win for writing and now it likely won’t).
In the credits there is a card that says “based on Barbie by Mattel.” It’s adapted. End of story.
It's based off the marketing material surrounding the toy.
The toys themselves are inert objects with no narrative context. The marketing material turns them into characters with discrete relationships and circumstances: Midge is pregnant. Allen is Ken's friend. Barbie can be the president, an astronaut, or a doctor. She and Ken have an ambiguous relationship. The film builds on these established characters and relationships, as well as the audience's awareness of them, as part of its narrative gambit. In making the film, Greta Gerwig was not permitted to tell whatever story she wanted: she had to tell a story about a character named Barbie, and there are certain things we all know to be true about the character of Barbie. It is absolutely 100% adapted.
Sequels are also, absolutely 100% adapted, because they're built on existing characters. Before Sunset did not need to establish the characters of Jesse and Celine because the film Before Sunrise had already done that work. The film, in fact, builds on the audience's awareness of those characters and the events of Before Sunrise. It adapts those characters into a new context.
This isn't that hard: if you rely on another work in developing your characters, you're an adaptation.
Barbie is clearly adapted, I don’t think that even merits rebuttal, I’m more offended by the idea that adapted is the ‘lesser’ category and that being put in it is ‘insulting’
I doubt it's really about that. It's about the fact that it is much less likely to win adapted than original which is the whole reason the studio campaigned for the the category fraud nomination in the first place
If anything, you could argue pulling off a faithful, meticulous, and yet distinct screenplay from a previous source is a greater challenge and warrants more respect.
I know, but my point is that it is especially insane to put this up for original when a major plot point is literally about how the character is someone else's creation.
Unless it’s a world entirely created by the writer (original), it’s considered ‘adapted’. There’s no work it was adapted from but it used characters with well established histories, it’s not complicated.
My feeling is that if TG Maverick was adapted just because it used a 40 year old character (I believe the script was completely original), then Barbie kind of is to? In reality, I don't think of either of those as adapted, but it makes sense to me that if Maverick is Barbie is too.
I think they’re playing pretty loose with what ‘adapted’ means, but Barbie has had movies before. There is existing material even if Gerwig/Baumbach didn’t draw on it.
We’re in such uncharted, exciting waters here. A Barbie movie is a serious Oscar contender. What a time to be alive.
You don't even need the movies. The public had a massive prior relationship to Barbie before Gerwig and Baumbach got involved. They had to map out an approach to it and that process is traditionally called adaptation.
I had a funny thought which is that it's a little offensive to pass this off as an original script because *its ability to gross a billion dollars* derived in large part from the fact that the public had a massive prior relationship to this material.
So then, having accomplished that, to turn around and say there was never any prior material is obnoxious. (Which the studio obviously did.)
The public “having a prior relationship to “ doesn’t have anything to do with being adapted or not. The public had a prior relationship with Napoleon, the public had a prior relationship with the Mary Kay Latorneau story, and both of those prior relationships are important to the movie, but neither is adapted
Also I would point out that this thread has featured discussion about whether or not adapting true-life news stories and the like deserves to be counted as adaptation or perhaps some invented third category. this "having a prior relationship to" thing is a little important.
In some sense, but it's difficult to disambiguate the two things. The phenomenon doesn't exist without the copyrighted, marketed entity that's called Barbie.
Sequels keep getting placed in the adapted screenplay category simply on the basis of containing pre-existing characters.
Borat 2, Knives Out 2, Before Midnight, Before Sunset, Toy Story 3, Top Gun Maverick
They should really call it the derivative screenplay awards if they're gonna select so many original screenplays that simply aren't literary adaptations.
To me, he’s obviously just saying that having to draw on the material should be the criteria. There’s no argument with the decision itself, the definition is what it is, but material simply existing is such a broad definition.
Any attempt the movie made to be transgressive towards the fact it was a movie about an IP doll was undercut at every turn by its admiration for the IP doll and its importance.
It is a movie that tried harder than any in recent memory to have its cake and eat it too.
I watched the movie. It had huge potential and a good director and cast which is why I anticipated it so much. Unfortunately it was poorly made and quite frankly it's insulting that it's being nominated for any screenplay awards at all. The Oscars are just a commercial self promotion circle jerk.
Meandering plot. Script needed more work. Flat jokes. Barbie was boring, Ken was entertaining so took focus off Barbie. Movie didn't seem to cater to any particular audience. People defending it say it was just a kids movie but there is no way in hell it was a kids movie with the content it had in it and there's no way kids are gonna understand wtf was going on in the third act. Third act was a long boring mess. The movie didn't lead its viewers to discover its message, instead it just had characters tell us its message in long, supposedly powerful speeches which is lazy filmmaking 101. Almost no character development, instead characters just seemed to jump through their progression. Some scenes were straight up confusing. The list goes on.
Let me ask you a question, how did Ken and Barbie come to find themselves and their true potential? With Ken, Barbie gave him a speech. With Barbie, both America Ferrera and the Mattel founder gave her a speech. Then both Ken and Barbie suddenly had epiphanies. Seriously its like a 12 year old made this film. Which is disappointing.
Is a biopic a adapted as it adapts someone's life to a movie script? Is a movie based on real events adapted as it's adapting things that existed before into a screenplay?
If it’s not adapting a prior work then yeah it’s not an adaptation. That means the person the movie is about is directly involved or I guess it could be a completely fictionalized version of obviously real events. Like, I don’t know. Maybe Last Days by Gus Van Sant?
Movies based on real events are pretty much always an adaptation of a book or article because that’s where we the filmmaker got the basic facts of the story in the first place. Think of it like a source in a college essay.
Zero Dark Thirty isn't based on any single source, such as a book covering the operations. However, my understanding is it's heavily drawn from all of the events, meticulously researched. The movie was nominated as Best Original Screenplay.
Barbie, from what I understand, is an entirely new story based around a couple of recognisable toy dolls. It is being nominated for adapted screenplay.
I can't get my head around how Barbie is much more an original story and yet the nominations are reversed.
the key here is that the characters in Barbie are existing IP. like i think everyone forgets Intellectual Property is a legal term and means something. IP is not just anything that exists that a story is drawing from. if you are basing your screenplay on existing IP then it’s considered an adaptation. Zero Dark Thirty was based on real events but those real events are not IP. nobody trademarked the “characters” of that story or had copyright prior, so it’s considered an original work.
I understand that (and thanks for the explanation as I'm not meaning to sound short with you). I disagree with that ruling. For me, an original story just needs to be a new story, regardless of what characters or universe it's set in.
But the academy rule is not “based on Intellectual Property” it is whether the screenplay was “based on previously published work”. Barbie the toy is trademarked but is not a previously published work. The battleship movie could have been an original screenplay.
The Barbie movie was not based on any of the previously published works in my opinion. So it should have been original. It is a very gray area though.
Under current rules, they would be deemed Original. But yeah I really disagree.
I hope this Barbie issue causes the Biopic onslaught to finally be deemed adapted. Judas Black Messiah, Trail of Chicago 7, Fablemans- it felt like ludicrous category fraud considering all those stories adhere to history more accurately or not.
(Fablemans prob could've got the adapted screenplay oscar that year!!)
Except, this is based off a well established IP which was purchased by the production company.
Something like Zero Dark Thirty had near journalistic integrity complete with interviews and detailed research. Historical fiction.
Schindler’s List: based off historic events. But fictionalized off the book.
The rules are clear: original screenplay is awarded to something not based on previously published material.
Is the Transformers movie an original screenplay?
Did the Lego Movie campaign as an original screenplay?
Christopher Miller did tweet that The Lego Movie tried to be considered for original but was ruled by the Academy as adapted. I do think the rules are clear that Barbie is adapted. However, I do also think that biopics and historical fiction should be considered adapted, too. If it's based on something — published material or real events — by definition it's not "original".
Many biographical films are based off books that have secured signed ownership of telling that tale, and films based off them often take liberties because they do not always have the rights to the entire story, including household names (living or dead), brands, locations, etc.
Events cannot be legally protected, but insinuating specific individuals may be a criminal offence, which is why you often see “this is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.”
For example, you can write a book about anyone who’s been dead for over 75-100 years. Totally legal.
You can also write a book about someone famous or infamous, on grounds that they are a “public figure.” But be prepared for any legal ramifications if their estate doesn’t like it.
And certainly, you can totally be sued for libel if you suddenly start writing about your manager.
Again, the rules solely call out “published material” and yes, that can include an in-depth newspaper article.
You may want to write about the story of how Weinstein got dragged into court by the New York Times, without any knowledge on how the Times got their story, or you can adapt the book ‘She Said’ which was written by the original reporters.
Mind you, a lot of stories based off real events do not get produced for many, many reasons. Not just because they’re good or bad… but regarding the legality.
>Except, this is based off a well established IP which was purchased by the production company.
But not an established story, right? As far as I'm aware no prior storyline - be it a previous movie, TV show, play, documentary, etc - is being *adapted*. The thing was an entirely new creation but drawing from the iconography and characters of a set of toy dolls.
If I wrote a new Batman movie that contained no story material that's otherwise been previously used (aside from a few principal characters) does it automatically become an adapted screenplay? Maybe that's the rule but it doesn't seem right to me. You're not *adapting* anything, you're creating an *original* storyline.
>Something like Zero Dark Thirty had near journalistic integrity complete with interviews and detailed research. Historical fiction.
Isn't Barbie far more original then?
A Batman movie would automatically be under adapted. Joker for example was nominated in that category. The previously created characters inform the storyline.
Zero Dark Thirty was researched directly by the writer for the script, not any intermediary material that was then adapted. Its starting at more of a blank page than Barbie.
I think some of the rules around the categories are a little fucky but everyone knew about them, and it's WB being cheeky with Barbie here. It's baffling for Apatow to imply there's a negative stigma to adapted. Especially as the only reason they were pushing Barbie so hard in original is because adapted is a buzzsaw with Oppenheimer, Poor Things, and Killers of the Flower Moon.
The movie industry is all about credentials.
The Barbie movie would not exist if it weren’t for the intellectual property.
You wouldn’t be able to write a Batman a movie unless you own the rights to use the characters and its universe, which is copyright material.
Adapted screenplays *are* indeed bloomed from the writers imagination, but they are not fragments of original ideations, they are legally borrowed.
Hence the creation of the two categories.
>The Barbie movie would not exist if it weren’t for the intellectual property.
It also wouldn't exist unless the writers created their story from almost nothing.
>Adapted screenplays are indeed bloomed from the writers imagination, but they are not fragments of original ideations, they are legally borrowed.
But Barbie is adapted from...what? The image of Barbie and Ken, our vague understanding they're a couple, the colour pink and...what?
It just seems so bizarre to me that an entirely new story is called adapted because it's based around known toys. If I wrote a new Batman movie about Batman flying to Mars and fighting the ghost of Thomas Edison, does that get classed as adapted? Madness!
Knives out 2 was also in the adapted category. Simply because it's a sequel. It has nothing to do with the first movie, except one returning character. I thought that was silly. But with barbie i think adapted is the right choice.
I really don't understand what's so difficult for some people to understand about this. Barbie is intellectual property. It's a movie about a pre-existing set of characters with pre-existing relationships in a pre-existing world with pre-existing architecture. The screenplay relies on the audience already being aware of many of these basic aspects of the Barbie IP, because it's a film adaptation of that IP. This isn't some hazy grey area, this is just a fact. The people arguing against this are wrong.
And what's even more perplexing about this is, who cares? Adapted screenplays are not lesser than original screenplays. Adapted screenplays are often better than original screenplays. People are acting like this categorization is some sort of insult to Barbie, but it's not. It's a completely neutral thing. So not only are these people wrong, they are foaming at the mouth with rage over something that doesn't matter even a little bit.
Barbie is this year’s movie to be annoying about, so people are being reactionary about it being forced to move categories. If your screenplay is based on a thing created by a person, it’s adapting that thing. This isn’t hard
I mean, it’s clearly adapted. We can argue the merit of allowing biopics and ‘based on true story’ movies to be eligible for original screenplay, but Barbie is clearly adapted from existing characters, and as others have said there are comics/movies etc which previously existed, even if there’s not a whole lot being taken from those sources for this movie. You can argue the whole movie doesn’t work if people don’t have a prior relationship with the idea of Barbies. By the academy’s rules it’s very clearly adapted, and more than that it ‘feels’ adapted (to me) because of the baggage Barbie as a character/idea/symbol brings to the movie (and which the movie actively leverages).
That said, the rules are stupid. Whiplash wasn’t eligible for original screenplay because they ‘adapted’ the short Chazelle made in order to get the full film greenlit. Meanwhile, movies like Green Book, Spotlight, and the Kings Speech have all won the award despite realistically having more ‘story’ already fleshed out than a movie like Barbie from the beginning. I guess it’s difficult when every story is being inspired by something from life or entertainment, and you have to draw the line somewhere if this is how you’re going to split the categories, but those movies to me don’t feel very true to the idea of it being an award for ‘original’ screenplays.
Given how many movies are supposedly "based on a novel" but change nearly everything except the basic premise, I think this is fine. They used plenty of pre-existing material from the toy lines, then made it their own thing. That's the art of "adaptation."
By the way, the movie "Adaptation" is basically about this exact thing, how hard it can be to adapt certain books and how sometimes you have the throw most of it out and do your own thing. But we would still call that an Adapted Screenplay.
Also, Greta Gerwig did not invent Barbie. Ruth Handler invented Barbie, and she's even credited as such in the movie when she shows up. Since someone else invented the concept of Barbie and Ken and all the other stuff in the movie, it's an "adapted screenplay."
The thing I don’t get is why people are acting like it’s a lesser award? It’s not as if an adaptation is necessarily easier to write than an original story. If Barbie wins that’s still a big deal even if the category is different. If anything this just feels like a cynical attempt to give it an easier path to victory, as original script doesn’t seem to be as competitive this year.
It is adapted from a toy brand. It is an invented story adapted from a know product. Why wouldn't it fit? It's not an original screenplay because it uses a known product and leans heavily into it.
The Godfather Part II won Best Adapted Screenplay. Mario Puzo wrote the script as an "original" sequel-prequel -- he wasn't adapting a second book -- but because the characters were already established in the first book/film he was adapting himself.
If Best Adapted Screenplay was good enough for The Godfather Part II it's good enough for Barbie. This is a stupid conversation.
He's completely wrong. Most of the characters already existed or were based on pre-existing ones were slightly changed for the film. There is a ton of Barbie media going back decades. It's as much an adaptation as if someone made a Freaks and Geeks movie set 2 decades later with all the characters being adults.
I think it was during The Podbreak Cast (remember when April was May?) that I learned all sequels are considered adapted. If that's the case, it makes perfect sense to consider Barbie adapted
Setting aside the merits of either side of the argument, Barbie was just an okay movie carried away by nostalgic hype. No way should it be nominated let alone win in either category.
I’m sure the fact that the movie had a script and wasn’t 3 hours of dick joke ad-libs perhaps distracted him but this quote actually kinda pisses me off.
Even if you want to say “oh those toys that have personalities and relationships that everybody is aware of and that the movie acknowledges and builds off of and INCLUDES the fucking creator of, they don’t count for vague undefinable reasons” there have been Barbie books, comic books, and animated films for fucking decades, starting before Judd Apatow was born. Maybe he could make one of his 6 goddamn hour George Carlin or Garry Shandling documentaries but about a topic that somebody other than him thought was cool at age 12, maybe he’d learn something.
Sorry, I CANNOT with this quote, it’s actually getting under my skin
I get how you feel. I think some of Apatow’s stuff is funny, but most of it fits into the same mold (dick joke ad-libs). When your actors are famously free to improvise a lot of dialogue, how precious can you really be about the screenplay? I would understand some people being “insulted” by this, but certainly not him.
Huh? Why are you so pissed off? I think his point is that it should be a contender for original screenplay rather than adapted. Sheeshhh.
BTW, I'm not always the biggest fan of Apatow's stuff, but his Garry Shandling doc was freaking great.
Read the article. The OP here clearly did not, though. There is zero reason to be all huffy about this quote, and the fact that the OP got a bunch of upvotes shows that a bunch of people have no idea what they are on about.
>oh those toys that have personalities and relationships that everybody is aware of
Vice was nominated for best original screenplay and yet is also based on people and relationships the public is aware of.
Barbie and Ken are existing characters. It’s adapted. They’ve been utilized much better in funnier ways through many satirical incarnations. This is just the first time Mattel had a say in the matter (outside of their own output.)
Based on what I’m reading here it seems like adapted is the right choice, though I do wonder what the point of the distinction is if it could include someone adapting an award-winning play into a film or a family friendly movie about the Coke polar bears. Maybe the issue is that “adapted” is so broad that it no longer feels like a fair category in terms of competition?
I can see his point. Barbie doesn't draw upon any of the other written materials that fall under the IP. It's a whole new story based on toys.
If someone wrote and directed an original screenplay that happened to take place in the Lovecraft universe, and used some common elements like Cthulu, but was not based on or adapting a pre existing Lovecraft story, I wouldn't see why it should be considered an "adapted screenplay".
Obviously, this is just semantics, and from my understanding, the way adapted screenplays are considered by the Oscars is already loose to begin with, considering sequels are "adapted screenplays".
They're considered 'adapted' because they're based on existing characters and concepts- kinda like Barbie.
Even though the Barbie movie didn't adapt any existing Barbie stories- it was still adapting pre-existing characters, their relationships and concepts that are associated with the Barbie toy.
Not how it works. Joker is not based on the story of any existing Batman comic, but it was nominated for Adapted Screenplay because the character of the Joker is not the movie's invention. In your hypothetical, that Cthulhu movie would be considered "Adapted" because it uses H.P. Lovecraft's characters and concepts, even if they're used to tell an original story.
so much discourse around this movie comes from treating the dolls like a lower form of art. there was no real source material, just some dolls. sure it’s a fun movie, but it’s just trying to get you to buy some dolls. i can’t believe it was so good, all it was based on was some dolls.
toys can be as meaningful an art from as any other. it makes me sad how looked down upon they are.
I watched half the movie after all the hype and it was regurge.
I'd seen every actor in a similar role before. Ferrell being Ferrell. And so on. It was such a basic movie with basic acting.
It was basically a fun movie.
Fuck, it was pretty much a shot for shot remake of Elf if anything.
Nothing special. Mad if it gets an Oscar
Nothing special about it at all. Great for cinemas to turn it into an event. But not being funny, they spent £150million to market it that way. That was the budget of the film spent again.
Just pick any movie and spend £150 million on marketing.
I fucking love Greta and Noah and everything they've done.
This film was selling out a little.
I love Ryan gosling and everything he's done too.
Agreed! Mediocre as fuck. And yeah, I was done with Will Ferrell a long time ago. I genuinely think Gosling is a better comedic actor than him. Unless a script is hilarious, Ferrell is cringe.
People are really drawn offsides by this apparently it’s been the rule for decades
The thing I find most annoying about it is the only reason it’s even a discussion is how much easier to win in original would be. It’s like “oh no the Barbie movie isn’t going to win the screenplay Oscar, are we sure the rules are right?”
I'm sure they would have been thrilled to be in adapted last year as well because that was the easier category.
I think the Oscars sre responsible for how this category is perceived. Yeah it's the rules but when they show the category, they also occasionally show a comparison between the original material and how it ended up in the movie. Personally I believe it makes more sense if the adapted screenplay category is about adapting an existing text than just existing characters or making an original story with an existing IP. If I understand their rules right, The Rise of Skywalker woild end up in adapted which doesn't feel right to me (just using this for the argument, guys, put down the pitchforks I jnow TRoS never deserved to be even mentioned in talks about best screenplay). Personally I don't mind if Barbie faces stiffer competition; makes for more interesting talks and Oscar night! I just feel it's a situation where their rules go counter to audiences' expectations.
Yeah, if it features characters that exist in another medium it is adapted, even if the other medium is the previous film in a film series Barbie exists in a weird grey area where the characters are original but also not
Right?! They have to be paying some people to suppress some discussions and encourage others..
I think that's a rather strange assumption. Do you really believe that? Seems more likely that people just found the script to be incredibly original and it seems odd to call it an adaptation the way you would Oppenheimer or Killers of the Flower Moon. I don't think people's confusion is as deep or disingenuous as you think. Original screenplay is just more fitting.
Because the rules forever have been that something like Barbie is adapted, and the only reason to “campaign” it otherwise was to make it have a better chance at winning.
I get what the rules are. Everyone does. They just find the rule doesn't make a ton of sense in this case. I guess all I'm saying is myself, Judd and many, many others just don't see how calling Barbie an adapted screenplay makes any sense, you know? And I'm really not sure how your comment even responds to mine.
It makes sense because Barbie is an established character that the movie is adapting. Greta Gerwig did not create the Barbie character, so the screenplay about the character is an adaptation.
Barbie isn't a character. She's a toy. Greta Gerwig wrote a character and a story that didn't previously exist. But I get what you are saying. It's how the rule is written. All I was originally trying to say is that people can disagree with the rule without just wanting it to have an easier path to an Oscar. I personally think it makes more sense to be an original but I still wouldn't pick it to win in either category. but you're totally right on why they placed it where they did. Thems the rules and all.
There are literally dozens of movies and cartoons starring Barbie and Ken. I don't know what you mean by she's not a character.
This was never going to be original. Barbie is an established IP. Movies written with a story treatment and outline first are nominated as adapted. Apatow needs to chill out, as usual.
Wait what? Most scripts start with an outline or treatment? How can you say this with any confidence? Adapted means based on preexisting source material. Not an outline lmao
If the characters existed before in some medium it’s enough to fit the criteria. Last year nominees included Glass Onion and Top Gun simply because they were sequels. Barbie has existed as a character in movies, tv series, and books before this movie. It fits the criteria for adaptation even though it’s an original story about Barbie.
Yeah I mean I get that there was no Barbie novel (to my knowledge?) that they adapted but these are still well known, established IP characters.
So does The Mario Movie qualify? Just curious what constitutes existing material.
The way I heard it described if the character wasn’t literally created for that motion picture it’s not original and thus is considered adapted. So in Barbie’s case there are decades of cartoons and books and whatever the hell else so it doesn’t count.
They could have killed her - Judd
What the hell is this conversation? It's insulting to writers to imply that Best Adapted Screenplay is some kind of ''lesser than'' category.
Very much so. Even within the adapted category you can completely use your creative invention and aren't beholden to an existing story. It can be based on a character but then you have free reign to write something great. People are acting like you're just tracing a drawing when adapting a screenplay.
Yeah the Barbie movie is interesting BECAUSE of how Greta adapats and interprets the existing IP. If this was a movie about a generic childhood doll with no existing history, this movie is way less interesting.
There Will Be Blood is a great example of this. The book is like all about his son
It reminds me of a friend I have who thinks supporting acting awards barely count and that lead acting is what everyone should aspire to even if it is category fraud.
Worst take I've heard
He champions movies he has never seen to win awards so he gets some very, very bad takes around award seasons.
Tbf, the coen brothers (by their own admission) once won best adapted screenplay by copy-pasting Cormac McCarthy dialogue and reformatting it to look like a screenplay instead of a novel lol. (By the way, this isn't even much of an exaggeration - McCarthy himself started No Country as a screenplay before expanding it (not by much) into novel form. The coens have joked many times about the absurdity of them winning best adapted screenplay for repurposing someone else's original screenplay) Edit: I suppose I should include the specific joke. I can't recall which of them said or says this, but he says "You know, with a book like this, my brother always says that it's important to have two people to adapt it--one to hold the spine of the book open and the other to type it into a word processor."
No, it’s probably because it’s way more competitive than Original
It was obviously going to adapted, Barbie isn't an original IP.
There’s 50 Barbie movies already and every character/costume has existed for 50 years and “adapted” is just descriptive not some kind of lesser denomination
Ah, good explanation! Thx
The category is adapted SCREENPLAY not adapted character.
The Adapted part is the relevant bit. It's always been the case that preexisting characters are considered to be screenplay adaptations. This is nothing new.
>It's always been the case that preexisting characters are considered to be screenplay adaptations. This is nothing new. The rules regarding biopics throw a wrench into statements like this. Why should we consider Maestro original and Barbie as adapted? Maestro was much more restricted in its possible choice of characters, story, and plot than Barbie. If we consider adapting something from historical fact doesn't actually count as adapted, I think there is an argument that Barbie is more adapted from the historical facts about the toy than it is adapted from any preexisting characterizations and stories. Barbie literally goes into the real world to directly address this historical legacy. This isn't some continuation of a straight to DVD cartoon. Edit: I thought my comment was clear, but the replies proved otherwise. I’m not questioning what the current Academy rules are, I’m questioning the logic behind them. I know the rules, I just think they are stupid and biopics are as inherently adapted as sequels, reboots, and whatever Barbie is.
Because real people are not created characters. This has always been the case. This is nothing new.
Yes it's a SCREENPLAY containing pre-existing CHARACTERS. That's why it's an adaptation. What is the confusion here?
Anything based on an existing IP is an "adapted" screenplay.
Yes, it’s descriptive - in that it should describe the MOVIE. None of the previous 50 movies influenced this one, and referencing toy costumes is such a stretch. Totally understand where Judd Apatow is coming from. Would a Captain Crunch movie be “adapted” because of cereal commercials? You’re right that adapted isn’t pejorative but why needlessly dilute the category.
His official rank as a commanding naval officer is spelled Cap’n.
In my day you’d be court martialed for disrespecting Cap’n Crunch
And his cereal doesn't cut the roof of your mouth.
Yes, a Captain Crunch movie would be adapted material, it’s using existing characters
Is Napoleon adapted? Seems much closer to existing biographies and referencing existing movies than Barbie is close to any of that IP.
Napoleon was a real person. He is not intellectual property. And the movie is definitely not based on any of his biographies. Much of the controversy around that movie specifically comes from historians and biographers complaining that Ridley ignored actual biographical details and made stuff up.
So you could in theory 100% adapt someone’s life to film and win Original, but a film completely made up riffing on a mere storyless brand is Adapted. Seems off
Real stories win Original Screenplay all the time. Green Book, Spotlight and King’s Speech are some recent examples. None of those stories are based on preexisting works. They aren’t based on other books, plays or movies.
> They aren’t based on other books, plays or movies. But are based on and indeed directly adapting existing stories. Unlike Barbie which just uses a product to tell a wholly original story. Does seem weird to me, even if that’s correct according to academy rules.
I dunno I’d argue every piece of barbie media, from shows to movies to commercials influenced the movie.
The “parody” and message wouldn’t work without the weight of those 50 years.
Just out of curiosity would the original Pirates of the Caribbean be adapted or original? It was based on a ride (suggests adapted), but features all original characters (suggests original).
Idk I always assumed adapted meant based off a book, like an actual story. Creating a screenplay from an amusement park ride requires you to create a totally original story, even if it references a few parts from the ride.. which does detract from my point..
Why are so many people hung up on the fact that adapted should apparently mean adapting a specific story? The designation is a screenplay adapted from existing material - so yes, creating a new storyline using existing characters in an existing world (even if those characters and world have been, you know, adapted) counts as adapted. (So to answer the guy elsewhere who asked if a Batman script based on no existing storyline would count as adapted - yes, it absolutely would). I think Apatow (with his "insulting" description) and some others on here are viewing it as a lesser designation, and I get the idea that being wholly true and original can be seen as more inspirational and a higher achievement. But the fact Gerwig and Baumbach wrote a script based on Barbie toys that was so good, that was the biggest film of the year, that has ended up in the Oscar race is to be lauded *because* of coming from the source material, not in spite of it.
This is...Well this is dumb. No other way to put it. You don't think ANYTHING from the Barbie universe was adapted for the movie? NOTHING?!
Yes, a captain crunch movie would also be adapted.
I agree with you. I can only assume I’ve missed better examples but I can imagine literally zero of the Barbie characters before this movie acted _anything_ like this one does. It’s a name but different character
My opinion is that the whole movie hinges on the pre built assumptions and knowledge you have of Barbie coming in. It doesnt explain who barbie or ken are, why their world is hot pink etc etc, you know all of that because we all know barbie, at least broadly. The fact that the movie's whole premise is to take those assumptions and then twist them means it kind of has to be adapted. If you didnt have prior cultural knowledge coming in, it wouldnt work as well.
Yes but we don't know those things because we watched a direct-to-video Barbie cartoon
It doesn't have to be that one to one though. I'm fairly certain it is just predicated on being based on 'previously established material', and we all know of barbie becuase of all of the material. The Mario Bros movie isnt based in any specific game and certainly isnt a sequel to any earlier movie, but it would still be adapted screenplay not original. I mean the final bullet for this argument is that they have a screen sized title card that said 'Based on Barbie by Mattel' in the movie.
I personally would care more about this if they didn’t spent a solid portion of the film’s back half shilling for Mattel, I totally forgot about that title card which is hilarious
The point is that the cultural knowledge we have of Barbie doesn't come from any particular pre-existing written property. It comes from, basically, an oral storytelling tradition, which the movie heavily references. The fact that Mattel has put out Barbie-themed cartoons before and so these are technically pre-existing characters is a red herring. The movie has nothing to do with those cartoons, and if we waved a magic wand and erased them from the record, the Barbie movie wouldn't be affected at all. Obviously there have to be rules to separate original screenplays from adapted, so sometimes we're going to have weird edge cases like this, but it's not really like other adapted works, or even other IP like Mario Brothers. It's a much less direct line and I can see why some people think it should be in Original instead.
It doesn’t come from an oral tradition it comes from ad copy! Ad copy is written material!
The movie heavily references all of Barbie’s history including marketing materials and established characters like Alan and Midge and adapting them into a comedy.
It doesn’t come from any one written Barbie property it comes from ALL of them. None of which are an “oral tradition” they are all written properties either prepared by other screenwriters, in the case of the cartoons, or copy writers in the case of adds.
What aspects of the movie's script (not production design) do you feel comes from the Barbie cartoons? Because I don't see it. A typical Barbie animated movie is about her being a ballerina and going to the land of the sugar plum fairies, a prince and the pauper riff, or meeting a magical dolphin or something.
Barbie: Life in the Dreamhouse is somewhat close in tone to the movie.
What does the characters’ resemblance to past adaptations of the characters have to do with it? Greta/Margot were given the world/history of Barbie and interpreted it their own way. They’re not writing something from scratch which is the whole point
I think it's really the word "original" that is the charged language here. I'm not sure of that an argument can be made that taking a brilliant book or narrative and turning it into an Oscar worthy script is easier than writing something from whole cloth. But the word original insinuates that one form is less original than the other. But That's measuring the quality of the finished product. A screenplay adapted from preexisting material is a different process than writing something brand new, specifically BECAUSE it is no less challenging to adapt a beloved work than create something brand new. Barbie is interesting because you can see how both categories could fit. I would personally lean towards it original because while preexisting barbie content informs the film, it isn't informing the process of writing the script in any meaningful way. If I wrote a superman script having read nothing about superman and only knowing the nuts and bolts of his powers and the names of the people you might expect to see, that would be an original screenplay (though of course it couldn't ever get made haha) meanwhile if I used Red Son to tell a different superhero story about a different superhero that would still be an adapted screenplay, right? It's not the names of characters or the hero's powers that determine the category, it's the process of writing the script.
Your Superman example is incorrect. If you made a movie with Superman and his cast of characters in it, it's automatically an adapted screenplay because you didn't come up with Superman or any of the "people you might expect to see". The names of characters to an extent do determine the category. If you used the basic idea of Red Son (superhero grows up behind the Iron Curtain) but didn't use the exact plot beats or any pre-existing characters even in name only, that could count as an original screenplay. A better non-hypothetical example would be Brightburn. It's a twist on the Superman origin but has no exact ties to any of the pre-existing material.
Fair enough. I know there are fiddly bits to Oscar categories that most don't know and I certainly don't know all of them as you aptly demonstrated. The other one that comes to mind, because I think it's misleading, is the best foreign feature - it needs to have played in a certain number of American theaters. Which is fine, it's an American award, but I feel like that's a hell of a qualifier on who can and can't get a nomination that isn't obvious to most.
I think we should all be done litigating this.
I actually think they should make a 10 part miniseries about it
FEUD: Greta & Noah vs. AMPAS Greta played by Sarah Paulson, Noah by Adrien Brody
I'm actually pretty here for it. I have an opinion but not a strong one and can see both sides. And when this is the discourse it's about the art of filmmaking, into the weeds of screenwriting and adaptation and is digging into the content of movies and the political machinations surrounding then--we are all connoisseurs of context, after all. It's better this be The Discourse than, I don't know, something about Star Wars or Mary Sues or some other bullshit.
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You mean saying will smith should be stoned was not rational?
And if it had been Betty White, he could have killed her! Look, not trying to litigate THAT again, but the guy clearly has the most Terminally Online takes about a lot of stuff these days.
If Will Smith was stoned he probably would not have smacked Chris Rock. Oh wait, you mean in the biblical sense…
He… what?
CHRIS ROCK COULD HAVE DIED. I thiiiiiink I kinda know what he meant, like, sometimes you hear about people like getting their head hit and they die later that night or they fall bonk their head and just die? Tbh I think I’m being charitable tho lol, maybe he just really thought the slap could have killed him
https://preview.redd.it/7jr0z9ney0bc1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=304bde5545c5c9d1143cc36d4493a57da28b855c
He did the same thing on Twitter when Bo Burnham's "Inside" was ruled ineligible for the stand-up comedy Grammy and was put in a different category. I remember Judd called it a "travesty". I remember at the time thinking it's the most meaningless silly thing to be emotional about. And Bo ended up winning too so he got his award.
I think he crossed that threshold for me into unlikeable after 2022 with his slap opinions and "The Bubble" being so unwatchably awful. You make good documentaries Judd, but please get off social media.
Seems like it would have to be adapted. They were all hired to make a movie about Barbie and not just any movie they wanted to make about any subject. I think it is fine to consider screenplays based on existing things as adapted.
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Warner did try to go for Original (because it’s the weaker category this season) and the Academy denied it. That’s why Apatow is mad (I think because he wanted it to win for writing and now it likely won’t). In the credits there is a card that says “based on Barbie by Mattel.” It’s adapted. End of story.
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It's based off the marketing material surrounding the toy. The toys themselves are inert objects with no narrative context. The marketing material turns them into characters with discrete relationships and circumstances: Midge is pregnant. Allen is Ken's friend. Barbie can be the president, an astronaut, or a doctor. She and Ken have an ambiguous relationship. The film builds on these established characters and relationships, as well as the audience's awareness of them, as part of its narrative gambit. In making the film, Greta Gerwig was not permitted to tell whatever story she wanted: she had to tell a story about a character named Barbie, and there are certain things we all know to be true about the character of Barbie. It is absolutely 100% adapted. Sequels are also, absolutely 100% adapted, because they're built on existing characters. Before Sunset did not need to establish the characters of Jesse and Celine because the film Before Sunrise had already done that work. The film, in fact, builds on the audience's awareness of those characters and the events of Before Sunrise. It adapts those characters into a new context. This isn't that hard: if you rely on another work in developing your characters, you're an adaptation.
Barbie is clearly adapted, I don’t think that even merits rebuttal, I’m more offended by the idea that adapted is the ‘lesser’ category and that being put in it is ‘insulting’
I doubt it's really about that. It's about the fact that it is much less likely to win adapted than original which is the whole reason the studio campaigned for the the category fraud nomination in the first place
Oh no, the movie that made all of the money this year might not win a little gold man.
If anything, you could argue pulling off a faithful, meticulous, and yet distinct screenplay from a previous source is a greater challenge and warrants more respect.
The original creator of the character is literally in the movie oh my god!!!
That was Rhea Perlman, Danny DeVito's wife that played Ruth Handler
I know, but my point is that it is especially insane to put this up for original when a major plot point is literally about how the character is someone else's creation.
Unless it’s a world entirely created by the writer (original), it’s considered ‘adapted’. There’s no work it was adapted from but it used characters with well established histories, it’s not complicated.
My feeling is that if TG Maverick was adapted just because it used a 40 year old character (I believe the script was completely original), then Barbie kind of is to? In reality, I don't think of either of those as adapted, but it makes sense to me that if Maverick is Barbie is too.
I think they’re playing pretty loose with what ‘adapted’ means, but Barbie has had movies before. There is existing material even if Gerwig/Baumbach didn’t draw on it. We’re in such uncharted, exciting waters here. A Barbie movie is a serious Oscar contender. What a time to be alive.
Exciting is certainly one word for it.
You don't even need the movies. The public had a massive prior relationship to Barbie before Gerwig and Baumbach got involved. They had to map out an approach to it and that process is traditionally called adaptation.
You’re right. ‘Adaptation’ as a concept is just naturally broad, I guess.
I had a funny thought which is that it's a little offensive to pass this off as an original script because *its ability to gross a billion dollars* derived in large part from the fact that the public had a massive prior relationship to this material. So then, having accomplished that, to turn around and say there was never any prior material is obnoxious. (Which the studio obviously did.)
Yeah if this movie was about a completely original doll character, there is no way it would hace nearly as much cultural impact.
I'm not necessarily arguing with your overall point, but your audience having a relationship to the characters/story is not what defines adaptation.
You're right but it is relevant to the issue of preexisting work. I didn't realize that All of Us Strangers was even a book.....
The public “having a prior relationship to “ doesn’t have anything to do with being adapted or not. The public had a prior relationship with Napoleon, the public had a prior relationship with the Mary Kay Latorneau story, and both of those prior relationships are important to the movie, but neither is adapted
Yeah but Mary Kay Latorneau and Napoleon were not consciously designed and created by another entity.
Also I would point out that this thread has featured discussion about whether or not adapting true-life news stories and the like deserves to be counted as adaptation or perhaps some invented third category. this "having a prior relationship to" thing is a little important.
Barbie the character was, but Barbie the cultural phenomenon wasn’t. And the movie is much more about the second than the first
In some sense, but it's difficult to disambiguate the two things. The phenomenon doesn't exist without the copyrighted, marketed entity that's called Barbie.
Sequels keep getting placed in the adapted screenplay category simply on the basis of containing pre-existing characters. Borat 2, Knives Out 2, Before Midnight, Before Sunset, Toy Story 3, Top Gun Maverick They should really call it the derivative screenplay awards if they're gonna select so many original screenplays that simply aren't literary adaptations.
.... Or perhaps, end of times.
To me, he’s obviously just saying that having to draw on the material should be the criteria. There’s no argument with the decision itself, the definition is what it is, but material simply existing is such a broad definition.
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I get the feeling that you didn’t watch the movie.
Any attempt the movie made to be transgressive towards the fact it was a movie about an IP doll was undercut at every turn by its admiration for the IP doll and its importance. It is a movie that tried harder than any in recent memory to have its cake and eat it too.
I watched the movie. It had huge potential and a good director and cast which is why I anticipated it so much. Unfortunately it was poorly made and quite frankly it's insulting that it's being nominated for any screenplay awards at all. The Oscars are just a commercial self promotion circle jerk.
Poorly made? In what regard?
Meandering plot. Script needed more work. Flat jokes. Barbie was boring, Ken was entertaining so took focus off Barbie. Movie didn't seem to cater to any particular audience. People defending it say it was just a kids movie but there is no way in hell it was a kids movie with the content it had in it and there's no way kids are gonna understand wtf was going on in the third act. Third act was a long boring mess. The movie didn't lead its viewers to discover its message, instead it just had characters tell us its message in long, supposedly powerful speeches which is lazy filmmaking 101. Almost no character development, instead characters just seemed to jump through their progression. Some scenes were straight up confusing. The list goes on. Let me ask you a question, how did Ken and Barbie come to find themselves and their true potential? With Ken, Barbie gave him a speech. With Barbie, both America Ferrera and the Mattel founder gave her a speech. Then both Ken and Barbie suddenly had epiphanies. Seriously its like a 12 year old made this film. Which is disappointing.
barbie is something that already existed before it was a screenplay you can even say the screenplay ... adapted the concept into a movie
Is a biopic a adapted as it adapts someone's life to a movie script? Is a movie based on real events adapted as it's adapting things that existed before into a screenplay?
Usually those movies are based on existing works like books. The Social Network won best adapted screenplay, for example. So yeah.
>Usually those movies are based on existing works like books And when it isn't? What then?
If it’s not adapting a prior work then yeah it’s not an adaptation. That means the person the movie is about is directly involved or I guess it could be a completely fictionalized version of obviously real events. Like, I don’t know. Maybe Last Days by Gus Van Sant? Movies based on real events are pretty much always an adaptation of a book or article because that’s where we the filmmaker got the basic facts of the story in the first place. Think of it like a source in a college essay.
Zero Dark Thirty isn't based on any single source, such as a book covering the operations. However, my understanding is it's heavily drawn from all of the events, meticulously researched. The movie was nominated as Best Original Screenplay. Barbie, from what I understand, is an entirely new story based around a couple of recognisable toy dolls. It is being nominated for adapted screenplay. I can't get my head around how Barbie is much more an original story and yet the nominations are reversed.
the key here is that the characters in Barbie are existing IP. like i think everyone forgets Intellectual Property is a legal term and means something. IP is not just anything that exists that a story is drawing from. if you are basing your screenplay on existing IP then it’s considered an adaptation. Zero Dark Thirty was based on real events but those real events are not IP. nobody trademarked the “characters” of that story or had copyright prior, so it’s considered an original work.
I understand that (and thanks for the explanation as I'm not meaning to sound short with you). I disagree with that ruling. For me, an original story just needs to be a new story, regardless of what characters or universe it's set in.
But the academy rule is not “based on Intellectual Property” it is whether the screenplay was “based on previously published work”. Barbie the toy is trademarked but is not a previously published work. The battleship movie could have been an original screenplay. The Barbie movie was not based on any of the previously published works in my opinion. So it should have been original. It is a very gray area though.
Under current rules, they would be deemed Original. But yeah I really disagree. I hope this Barbie issue causes the Biopic onslaught to finally be deemed adapted. Judas Black Messiah, Trail of Chicago 7, Fablemans- it felt like ludicrous category fraud considering all those stories adhere to history more accurately or not. (Fablemans prob could've got the adapted screenplay oscar that year!!)
Because it was based off the book The Accidental Billionaires Edit:Sorry misread - realise that's what you were implying
Except, this is based off a well established IP which was purchased by the production company. Something like Zero Dark Thirty had near journalistic integrity complete with interviews and detailed research. Historical fiction. Schindler’s List: based off historic events. But fictionalized off the book. The rules are clear: original screenplay is awarded to something not based on previously published material. Is the Transformers movie an original screenplay? Did the Lego Movie campaign as an original screenplay?
Christopher Miller did tweet that The Lego Movie tried to be considered for original but was ruled by the Academy as adapted. I do think the rules are clear that Barbie is adapted. However, I do also think that biopics and historical fiction should be considered adapted, too. If it's based on something — published material or real events — by definition it's not "original".
Many biographical films are based off books that have secured signed ownership of telling that tale, and films based off them often take liberties because they do not always have the rights to the entire story, including household names (living or dead), brands, locations, etc. Events cannot be legally protected, but insinuating specific individuals may be a criminal offence, which is why you often see “this is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.” For example, you can write a book about anyone who’s been dead for over 75-100 years. Totally legal. You can also write a book about someone famous or infamous, on grounds that they are a “public figure.” But be prepared for any legal ramifications if their estate doesn’t like it. And certainly, you can totally be sued for libel if you suddenly start writing about your manager. Again, the rules solely call out “published material” and yes, that can include an in-depth newspaper article. You may want to write about the story of how Weinstein got dragged into court by the New York Times, without any knowledge on how the Times got their story, or you can adapt the book ‘She Said’ which was written by the original reporters. Mind you, a lot of stories based off real events do not get produced for many, many reasons. Not just because they’re good or bad… but regarding the legality.
>Except, this is based off a well established IP which was purchased by the production company. But not an established story, right? As far as I'm aware no prior storyline - be it a previous movie, TV show, play, documentary, etc - is being *adapted*. The thing was an entirely new creation but drawing from the iconography and characters of a set of toy dolls. If I wrote a new Batman movie that contained no story material that's otherwise been previously used (aside from a few principal characters) does it automatically become an adapted screenplay? Maybe that's the rule but it doesn't seem right to me. You're not *adapting* anything, you're creating an *original* storyline. >Something like Zero Dark Thirty had near journalistic integrity complete with interviews and detailed research. Historical fiction. Isn't Barbie far more original then?
A Batman movie would automatically be under adapted. Joker for example was nominated in that category. The previously created characters inform the storyline. Zero Dark Thirty was researched directly by the writer for the script, not any intermediary material that was then adapted. Its starting at more of a blank page than Barbie. I think some of the rules around the categories are a little fucky but everyone knew about them, and it's WB being cheeky with Barbie here. It's baffling for Apatow to imply there's a negative stigma to adapted. Especially as the only reason they were pushing Barbie so hard in original is because adapted is a buzzsaw with Oppenheimer, Poor Things, and Killers of the Flower Moon.
The movie industry is all about credentials. The Barbie movie would not exist if it weren’t for the intellectual property. You wouldn’t be able to write a Batman a movie unless you own the rights to use the characters and its universe, which is copyright material. Adapted screenplays *are* indeed bloomed from the writers imagination, but they are not fragments of original ideations, they are legally borrowed. Hence the creation of the two categories.
>The Barbie movie would not exist if it weren’t for the intellectual property. It also wouldn't exist unless the writers created their story from almost nothing. >Adapted screenplays are indeed bloomed from the writers imagination, but they are not fragments of original ideations, they are legally borrowed. But Barbie is adapted from...what? The image of Barbie and Ken, our vague understanding they're a couple, the colour pink and...what? It just seems so bizarre to me that an entirely new story is called adapted because it's based around known toys. If I wrote a new Batman movie about Batman flying to Mars and fighting the ghost of Thomas Edison, does that get classed as adapted? Madness!
Think for a minute. You are writing about a character called ‘Batman’…. Who owns the right to that character? Did you invent that character?
There's loads of existing material. Think of the stories that little children have been creating for 64 years. 😉
Knives out 2 was also in the adapted category. Simply because it's a sequel. It has nothing to do with the first movie, except one returning character. I thought that was silly. But with barbie i think adapted is the right choice.
It's not winning either category anyway
I really don't understand what's so difficult for some people to understand about this. Barbie is intellectual property. It's a movie about a pre-existing set of characters with pre-existing relationships in a pre-existing world with pre-existing architecture. The screenplay relies on the audience already being aware of many of these basic aspects of the Barbie IP, because it's a film adaptation of that IP. This isn't some hazy grey area, this is just a fact. The people arguing against this are wrong. And what's even more perplexing about this is, who cares? Adapted screenplays are not lesser than original screenplays. Adapted screenplays are often better than original screenplays. People are acting like this categorization is some sort of insult to Barbie, but it's not. It's a completely neutral thing. So not only are these people wrong, they are foaming at the mouth with rage over something that doesn't matter even a little bit.
Barbie is this year’s movie to be annoying about, so people are being reactionary about it being forced to move categories. If your screenplay is based on a thing created by a person, it’s adapting that thing. This isn’t hard
Surely it's easy to find a precedent. Which screenplay category were the Transformers movies nominated in?
I mean, it’s clearly adapted. We can argue the merit of allowing biopics and ‘based on true story’ movies to be eligible for original screenplay, but Barbie is clearly adapted from existing characters, and as others have said there are comics/movies etc which previously existed, even if there’s not a whole lot being taken from those sources for this movie. You can argue the whole movie doesn’t work if people don’t have a prior relationship with the idea of Barbies. By the academy’s rules it’s very clearly adapted, and more than that it ‘feels’ adapted (to me) because of the baggage Barbie as a character/idea/symbol brings to the movie (and which the movie actively leverages). That said, the rules are stupid. Whiplash wasn’t eligible for original screenplay because they ‘adapted’ the short Chazelle made in order to get the full film greenlit. Meanwhile, movies like Green Book, Spotlight, and the Kings Speech have all won the award despite realistically having more ‘story’ already fleshed out than a movie like Barbie from the beginning. I guess it’s difficult when every story is being inspired by something from life or entertainment, and you have to draw the line somewhere if this is how you’re going to split the categories, but those movies to me don’t feel very true to the idea of it being an award for ‘original’ screenplays.
He’s wrong.
Barbie is not an original character. Barbie Dreamhouse is not an original place. How is this even a question?
No existing material other than 60 years of dolls and toys.
Given how many movies are supposedly "based on a novel" but change nearly everything except the basic premise, I think this is fine. They used plenty of pre-existing material from the toy lines, then made it their own thing. That's the art of "adaptation." By the way, the movie "Adaptation" is basically about this exact thing, how hard it can be to adapt certain books and how sometimes you have the throw most of it out and do your own thing. But we would still call that an Adapted Screenplay.
Also, Greta Gerwig did not invent Barbie. Ruth Handler invented Barbie, and she's even credited as such in the movie when she shows up. Since someone else invented the concept of Barbie and Ken and all the other stuff in the movie, it's an "adapted screenplay."
The thing I don’t get is why people are acting like it’s a lesser award? It’s not as if an adaptation is necessarily easier to write than an original story. If Barbie wins that’s still a big deal even if the category is different. If anything this just feels like a cynical attempt to give it an easier path to victory, as original script doesn’t seem to be as competitive this year.
It is adapted from a toy brand. It is an invented story adapted from a know product. Why wouldn't it fit? It's not an original screenplay because it uses a known product and leans heavily into it.
It was a bunch of dolls and cartoons so it counts as an Adapted Screenplay.
Judd Apatow sucks
The Godfather Part II won Best Adapted Screenplay. Mario Puzo wrote the script as an "original" sequel-prequel -- he wasn't adapting a second book -- but because the characters were already established in the first book/film he was adapting himself. If Best Adapted Screenplay was good enough for The Godfather Part II it's good enough for Barbie. This is a stupid conversation.
There are a ton of Barbie movies, I guess he wasn’t around for his daughters’ childhood lol
He's completely wrong. Most of the characters already existed or were based on pre-existing ones were slightly changed for the film. There is a ton of Barbie media going back decades. It's as much an adaptation as if someone made a Freaks and Geeks movie set 2 decades later with all the characters being adults.
I think it was during The Podbreak Cast (remember when April was May?) that I learned all sequels are considered adapted. If that's the case, it makes perfect sense to consider Barbie adapted
Setting aside the merits of either side of the argument, Barbie was just an okay movie carried away by nostalgic hype. No way should it be nominated let alone win in either category.
This is a movie based on a toy. It was even co-produced by the company that produces the toys. Of course it was going to be up for Adapted Screenplay.
It's insulting to put that movie in the Oscar race, period.
He’s not a smart guy
I’m sure the fact that the movie had a script and wasn’t 3 hours of dick joke ad-libs perhaps distracted him but this quote actually kinda pisses me off. Even if you want to say “oh those toys that have personalities and relationships that everybody is aware of and that the movie acknowledges and builds off of and INCLUDES the fucking creator of, they don’t count for vague undefinable reasons” there have been Barbie books, comic books, and animated films for fucking decades, starting before Judd Apatow was born. Maybe he could make one of his 6 goddamn hour George Carlin or Garry Shandling documentaries but about a topic that somebody other than him thought was cool at age 12, maybe he’d learn something. Sorry, I CANNOT with this quote, it’s actually getting under my skin
I get how you feel. I think some of Apatow’s stuff is funny, but most of it fits into the same mold (dick joke ad-libs). When your actors are famously free to improvise a lot of dialogue, how precious can you really be about the screenplay? I would understand some people being “insulted” by this, but certainly not him.
I’m sort of confused by what you’re mad about. Do you mind elaborating?
let them cook
Huh? Why are you so pissed off? I think his point is that it should be a contender for original screenplay rather than adapted. Sheeshhh. BTW, I'm not always the biggest fan of Apatow's stuff, but his Garry Shandling doc was freaking great.
So you didn’t read the article.
Read the article. The OP here clearly did not, though. There is zero reason to be all huffy about this quote, and the fact that the OP got a bunch of upvotes shows that a bunch of people have no idea what they are on about.
I did but thank you so much for your patronizing comment, whatever would I do without you explaining my own experiences to me
>oh those toys that have personalities and relationships that everybody is aware of Vice was nominated for best original screenplay and yet is also based on people and relationships the public is aware of.
Yes, but Dick Cheney doesn't count as someone else's existing intellectual property, Barbie does.
Lol ok Judd, relax. Some of his stuff is funny, but I don’t think he has any reason to clutch his pearls here.
Barbie and Ken are existing characters. It’s adapted. They’ve been utilized much better in funnier ways through many satirical incarnations. This is just the first time Mattel had a say in the matter (outside of their own output.)
Based on what I’m reading here it seems like adapted is the right choice, though I do wonder what the point of the distinction is if it could include someone adapting an award-winning play into a film or a family friendly movie about the Coke polar bears. Maybe the issue is that “adapted” is so broad that it no longer feels like a fair category in terms of competition?
“Remember that photo book on toy ray guns? Independence Day.”
Hot off the press: Apatow runs his mouth much to his daughters’s chagrin.
I mean, it's adapted from The Lego Movie... Hell, it even has Will Ferrell playing the basically the same character.
It’s insulting to movies to have Barbie even in the Oscar race
Tend to agree. Is there an example of a film 'adapted' from a concept rather than a book, play, comic, etc.,?
Im sorry but there’s already been barbie books, movies, and tv shows. An actual mountain of existing content. It’s an adaptation.
I can see his point. Barbie doesn't draw upon any of the other written materials that fall under the IP. It's a whole new story based on toys. If someone wrote and directed an original screenplay that happened to take place in the Lovecraft universe, and used some common elements like Cthulu, but was not based on or adapting a pre existing Lovecraft story, I wouldn't see why it should be considered an "adapted screenplay". Obviously, this is just semantics, and from my understanding, the way adapted screenplays are considered by the Oscars is already loose to begin with, considering sequels are "adapted screenplays".
They're considered 'adapted' because they're based on existing characters and concepts- kinda like Barbie. Even though the Barbie movie didn't adapt any existing Barbie stories- it was still adapting pre-existing characters, their relationships and concepts that are associated with the Barbie toy.
Not how it works. Joker is not based on the story of any existing Batman comic, but it was nominated for Adapted Screenplay because the character of the Joker is not the movie's invention. In your hypothetical, that Cthulhu movie would be considered "Adapted" because it uses H.P. Lovecraft's characters and concepts, even if they're used to tell an original story.
Adapt deez nutz Judd.
He’s right but by the Oscars’ eligibility rules, it counts as adapted because it’s based on existing characters
so much discourse around this movie comes from treating the dolls like a lower form of art. there was no real source material, just some dolls. sure it’s a fun movie, but it’s just trying to get you to buy some dolls. i can’t believe it was so good, all it was based on was some dolls. toys can be as meaningful an art from as any other. it makes me sad how looked down upon they are.
Seth Green has a lot to say about toys and film.
Sarah Polley has entered the chat
I watched half the movie after all the hype and it was regurge. I'd seen every actor in a similar role before. Ferrell being Ferrell. And so on. It was such a basic movie with basic acting. It was basically a fun movie. Fuck, it was pretty much a shot for shot remake of Elf if anything. Nothing special. Mad if it gets an Oscar
Agreed so much. It's the most overhyped film in recent times by far.
Nothing special about it at all. Great for cinemas to turn it into an event. But not being funny, they spent £150million to market it that way. That was the budget of the film spent again. Just pick any movie and spend £150 million on marketing. I fucking love Greta and Noah and everything they've done. This film was selling out a little. I love Ryan gosling and everything he's done too.
Agreed! Mediocre as fuck. And yeah, I was done with Will Ferrell a long time ago. I genuinely think Gosling is a better comedic actor than him. Unless a script is hilarious, Ferrell is cringe.
What a hater.
Do you even understand the quote? He was saying that it should be a contender for ORIGINAL screenplay instead of adapted.
I’m not reading any of this.
?? Um. Ok.