Acclaimed filmmaker Noah Baumbach recently released his most recent film “White Noise,” starring Adam Driver and Baumbach’s partner Greta Gerwig, on Netflix.
That film, an adaptation of Don DeLillo’s satirical novel about a college professor who has to evacuate himself and his family after an ‘Airborne Toxic Event’ invades his community, has scored decidedly mixed reviews thus far.
Baumbach’s next credit should score a more interesting reception – co-writer of the upcoming “Barbie” movie alongside Gerwig, who directs that feature. On paper the two projects couldn’t be more different.
Speaking to EW recently, Gerwig and Baumbach revealed there are surprising connections between the two films with Baumbach’s work on the just-released title impacting how they wrote the “Barbie” script:
Baumbach: “I wrote ‘White Noise,’ and then, once I had that in a place where I thought, okay, I’ve done a lot of the heavy lifting, Greta and I started work on ‘Barbie’. So that was all sort of happening during that first year of the pandemic. They’re kind of connected in a funny. The execution is different but there are aspects of the world of ‘White Noise’ that actually informed some of how we looked at ‘Barbie’.”
Gerwig: “Everything got written in 2020. They very much feel like they came out of the same place in a way. I mean, they physically came out of the same address. But I think it contributed, him working on that and us working on ‘Barbie’ together.”
If they’re that connected, should cinephiles program them as a double feature for future viewing parties? Gerwig says: “I’m not going to pitch that. I’m sure if someone wanted to, it might be interesting. I don’t know. It could be strange. I can feel how they’re connected, but I don’t know if anyone else will see it.”
“White Noise” is available now on Netflix, and “Barbie” hits cinemas on July 21st.
