In Barbie we see Will Ferrell as the Mother, the CEO of Mattel, the ultimate villain. Maybe some people were left wondering: Who owns Mattel in real life? Who is really in charge of the company? Are they as evil as Ferrell’s character?
Currently, Mattel is a publicly traded company, which means it doesn’t have an owner, but it does have managers. As of 2018, Mattel’s CEO is Ynon Kreiz, the equivalent of Will Ferrell’s character. One interesting thing about Kreiz is his focus on entertainment: before Mattel, he was at Disney, and before that, at Maker Studios and Endemol.
That’s the reason he’s in charge. His experience and interest in capitalizing on the narratives around Mattel toys is part of his strategy. Hence the recent announcement of a whole universe of upcoming movies in that regard. They just confirmed Girls writer and star Lena Dunham to direct a film with MGM about Mattel’s Polly Pocket, starring Lily Collins.
It’s partly thanks to him that Barbie is the extraordinary movie it is. According to a Bloomberg report, Mattel gave Warner Bros. and Greta Gerwig full creative freedom for the film, including how Mattel and its executives would be portrayed. In addition, it was reportedly his idea to cast Margot Robbie as the lead.
Who Created Mattel?
The story of how Mattel began dates back to the 1940s. In 1945, Harold “Matt” Matson and Elliot Handler, childhood friends, pooled their talents to create a small toy company in a garage in Hawthorne, California, USA. Initially, Mattel focused on manufacturing picture frames, but they discovered that they could change their production line and focus on toys that were in much greater demand in the marketplace.
They started with wooden toys such as billiard balls and other small items, and the Uke-A-Doodle, a guitar for children, was their first big success. The big breakthrough for Mattel came in 1955 when Ruth Handler, wife of Elliot Handler, suggested the idea of creating a doll with an adult figure. Until then, the only dolls for girls were babies or toddlers.
In 1959, Barbie made her debut at the New York Toy Fair and quickly became a resounding success, later on came Ken. From that moment on, Mattel continued to grow and diversify its product line, creating other iconic brands such as Hot Wheels in 1968, which became the leading brand of scale toy cars.
The entrepreneurial vision of Matt Matson and Elliot Handler, along with the creativity and intuition of Ruth Handler, allowed Mattel to become one of the largest and most successful toy companies in the world, bringing fun and imagination to generations of children around the globe.
This story was written in Spanish by Cora Bravo by Cultura Colectiva
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