If you’re a kid or former kid who felt left out during last summer’s Barbie mania, you’ll be thrilled to learn that Monster High—the dolls for burgeoning alt-kids—are getting their own live-action movie from the corporate overlords at Mattel.
Following the record-breaking success of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, Mattel is plotting all sorts of new movies based on your favorite childhood toys—including Monster High, the doll line for junior goths and future e-kids, and an edgier, weirder alternative to the ultra-normie world of Barbie and friends. For the unfamiliar, Monster High launched in 2010 and has become a wildly successful franchise that includes animated shows and movies, YA books, video games, and various school accessories.
The main characters in the Monster High universe are the teen kids of monsters from famous movies, literature, and myth. There’s Frankie Stein, the daughter of Frankenstein’s monster and his Bride; Draculaura, the vampire daughter of Dracula (it’s best not to think too much about how these guys managed to procreate); Cleo de Nile, the daughter of the ancient mummy Ramses; Clawdeen Wolf, daughter of a human and a werewolf; and Lagoona Blue, the daughter of a sea monster (unspecified, it seems).
While there have been plenty of animated series and one-off movies based on the characters—including a live-action movie in 2022—Mattel is plotting a new, big-budget live-action movie adaptation with Universal Pictures, which owns the rights to multiple classic movie monsters. Variety reports that Akiva Goldsman, showrunner of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and screenwriter of such films as A Beautiful Mind, Winter’s Tale, and I Am Legend (a real mixed bag), is working with Mattel and Universal to develop the Monster High movie.
