Amy Schumer, originally attached to play the title character, left the project over creative differences. So did ace scribe Diablo Cody, who recently shared why she departed the production.

“I didn’t really have the freedom then to write something that was faithful to the iconography; they wanted a girl-boss feminist twist on Barbie, and I couldn’t figure it out because that’s not what Barbie is.”

Meanwhile, the actors are more than happy to push the film’s potentially woke elements, disinterested in how it could impact the movie’s bottom line.

Yet the film’s marketing machine isn’t promoting its feminist bona fides.

[I guess we’ll know when the first reviews come in. If nothing else, the message discipline on the front end is a recognition that audiences are tired of woke lectures at the cinema. That’s progress, at least. — Ed]