Lena Dunham is no longer working on the Polly Pocket movie for MGM, with the actress announcing that she has stepped away from the project.
Dunham revealed the news in a recent interview with The New Yorker, where she said that despite working on the project for three years and having written a script, she won’t be working on the project anymore.
The writer-actress-director noted that it simply wasn’t the movie she was meant to be making at the moment: “But I remember someone once said to me about Nancy Meyers: the thing that’s the most amazing about her is that the movie she makes or the movie she would be making with or without a studio, with or without notes — that somehow her taste manages to intersect perfectly with what the world wants,” said Dunham. “What a f—ing gift that is. And Nora Ephron, too, who was such a mentor to me, but always said, ‘Go be weird. Don’t kowtow to anyone.'”
What will happen to the Polly Pocket movie?
Dunham also brought up director Greta Gerwig and last year’s Barbie film, noting that Gerwig’s take on the film was “perfectly and divinely Greta” and that she didn’t think Polly Pocket was something she needed to make in the same vein.
“And I think Greta [Gerwig] managed this incredible feat [with Barbie], which was to make this thing that was literally candy to so many different kinds of people and was perfectly and divinely Greta,” Dunham said. “And I just — I felt like, unless I can do it that way, I’m not going to do it. I don’t think I have that in me. I feel like the next movie I make needs to feel like a movie that I absolutely have to make. No one but me could make it. And I did think other people could make Polly Pocket.”
As of now, it’s unclear what will happen to the project moving forward. The project was originally announced in 2021, with Lily Collins attached to star. As recently as last year, there was some significant progress on the project, with MGM having mentioned how good Dunham’s script was.
With the news that she will no longer be working on the project, however, it’s unknown whether or not MGM will move forward with plans to make the movie, or whether or not they will recast the lead role.
(Source: The New Yorker)
