‘The Beanie Bubble’ Is Not Actually About Beanie Babies
variety.comElizabeth Wagmeister Chief Correspondent This summer, “Barbie” has revived the box office, making nearly $500 million worldwide in its first week.
Earlier this year, “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” surpassed the billion-dollar mark. If those two success are any indication, it seems that nostalgia sells — particularly nostalgia for classic toys and characters to which moviegoers have a personal connection. “The Beanie Bubble” (streaming Friday on Apple TV+) centers around the Beanie Baby craze of the ’90s.
But the movie is not really about Beanie Babies. Based on the book “The Great Beanie Baby Bubble: Mass Delusion and the Dark Side of Cute” by author Zac Bissonnette, the film is the feature directorial debut for co-directors and real-life married couple, musician Damian Kulash and Kristin Gore, who wrote the screenplay.
The movie is set against the backdrop of the rise in popularity of Beanie Babies in the 1990’s. But what the filmmakers are aiming to tell is a much deeper, human story about the American dream, capitalism, democracy, power, cracks in the system and sexism in business. “I didn’t think that I cared about the Beanie Baby craze,” Gore tells Variety.
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