Oliver Stone Is Clarifying That, No, He Doesn’t Actually Hate ‘Barbie,’ Which He Trashed Before Seeing It
Oliver Stone has always bravely stated his batty opinions. He doesn’t care whose toes he steps on, or if even Bill Maher thinks he’s too conspiracy theory-crazy. But after word got out that he thought Barbie was “sh*t,” Stone actually did the unthinkable: He backtracked and even apologized.
On Sunday, Deadline dug up an interview the Oscar-winning filmmaker made last July, in which he said Ryan Gosling is “wasting his time” making silly films like Barbie. “He should be doing more serious films,” Stone charged. “He shouldn’t be a part of this infantilization of Hollywood.”
By Monday Stone was on the defensive, saying that, no, he doesn’t actually agree with the wacko far right that Barbie is bad. His statement, he said, was taken “out-of-context,” and that he’d called the biggest moneymaker of 2023 “sh*t” before the film had even come out. What’s more, all he’d known about it was the title, not that it was made by Greta Gerwig and her future husband Noah Baumbach.
“I was able to see Barbie in a theater back in July and appreciated the film for its originality and its themes,” Stone said. “I found the filmmakers’ approach certainly different than what I expected. I apologize for speaking ignorantly.”
Stone also stated that he’s a Gerwig fan, calling Lady Bird one of his favorites of 2017. He also said Barbie “greatly boosted the morale of our business,” at a time when movie theaters are still recovering from the pandemic, not to mention being an original, non-franchise film in an era of franchises.
He concluded by wishing Gerwig and the Barbie team “good fortune at the Oscars.”
And so Oliver Stone apologized for running his mouth about something he didn’t know much about. It’s not hell freezing over, although it would be if fellow highly opinionated cinematic genius Paul Schrader did something similar.
(Via Entertainment Weekly)