$1M budget ‘BARBENHEIMER’ movie is in the works

Information reaching Kossyderrickent has it that A $1M budget ‘BARBENHEIMER’ movie is in the works.

The film follows Dr. Barbenheimer, a scientist doll living in Dolltopia, who tries to take out humanity with a nuclear bomb.

Things can move pretty speedily in the B-movie arena and it wasn’t long before they had a script and also a couple of songs written by Brian Wecht, one half of musical comedy duo Ninja Sex Party. “He has the right sensibility for this,” says Band. Barbenheimer’s cast and director are soon to be announced, and while its budget of just under $1 million may rule out both Gerwig or Margot Robbie, it does make the film one of Band’s more expensive. And it’s a low-budget world he unashamedly leans into with delight.

Film industry cynics may take one look at a newly-announced low-budget comedy called Barbenheimer and a poster that uses Barbie’s iconic pink font over a picture of a nuclear explosion and features the tag-line “D-Cup, A-Bomb,” and immediately assume it’s simply a shameless attempt to cash in on a very recent cultural phenomenon. And those cynics would be absolutely correct, says Charles Band, the prolific B-movie icon who has been making low-budget horror comedies since the early 1970s. 

“It’s 100 percent true,” he says. “But it’s also an opportunity to have fun with the bizarre coupling of these two movies and the combination of Barbie’s vibe and the darkness of Oppenheimer. You mix that together and you have such an opportunity for dark humor.”

Barbenheimer, selling at the American Film Market (where else?) with AMP, follows Dr. Bambi J Barbenheimer, a brilliant scientist doll living in Dolltopia, a world of endless summers and beach parties, and her boyfriend Twink Dollman. So far, so Greta Gerwig’s neon-colored billion-dollar megahit. Turning Nolan’s distinctly less pink dial up a notch, our Dr. Barbenheimer, incensed by the brutal treatment the dolls receive at the hands of human children, ventures into the real world where she experiences humanity at its worst and, naturally, decides to build a giant nuclear bomb to take it all out. “They got great looks and a super attitude! Oh, and now they’ve got the bomb,” reads the synopsis.