Ynon Kreiz, the chief executive of Mattel Inc. is placing a lot of bets on upcoming films from the toymaker.
In an interview last month with Yahoo Finance, Kreiz said that for the El Segundo company, each movie has its own path to be successful and doesn’t necessarily need to be the success that “Barbie” was last summer.
“For Mattel, a movie doesn’t have to reach the same level of box office success for that to have a commercial impact,” Kreiz said during the interview with Brian Sozzi. “And so, we’re very excited by this slate.”
The company’s stock rose by 4% the day after the interview was posted. It went from $17.11 on June 20 to $17.81 on June 21, on a trading volume that was the highest for the company in several years. It traded 28.5 million shares that day, beating the most recent high of 27.7 million reached on Oct. 23, 2020, but still falling short of the all-time high of 66.4 million shares traded reached in October 2017.
Since then, the stock has dropped below $17, reaching a 52-week low close of $16.02 on July 9 before recovering.
Shares closed at $16.54 on July 18.
The “Barbie” movie, starring Margot Robbie as the perky doll and Ryan Gosling as Ken, landed in theaters last year. It was co-produced by Mattel Films and released by Warner Bros. Entertainment in Burbank. “Barbie” brought in a global box office take of $1.4 billion, making it the most popular movie of last year and the 14th highest grossing movie of all time. It was nominated for eight Academy Awards, winning for Best Original Song.
Mattel’s upcoming projects
Mattel’s future film slate includes a “Hot Wheels” movie to be produced by J.J. Abrams, a “Masters of the Universe” film, and the recently announced “Monsters High” film from Academy Award-winning producer/screenwriter Akiva Goldsman and Universal Pictures.
In the Yahoo Finance interview, Kreiz said that while not every movie Mattel develops will have the same success as “Barbie,” the company intends to apply the same approach of collaborating with leading talent, amplifying their creative vision and infusing brand purpose and cultural relevance into all of its projects.
“And this is very much what defined the ‘Barbie’ movie,” Kreiz said. “The success of the movie, of course, was about a creative collaboration, the ultimate creative collaboration. But it was really driven by the strength of the Barbie brand and the purpose and the cultural relevance that (director) Greta Gerwig brought into the picture, of course, with an incredible cast and a great story.”
Asked by Sozzi if it was hard to compete for eyeballs, Kreiz said what Mattel brings to the table is a very strong portfolio of heritage brands that already have a large, built-in fan base that goes back two or even three generations.
“And if you look around, very few companies, if any, have the quality and strength of the brand portfolio that Mattel can play with, and we have a lot to play with and a lot to play for,” he said.
He added that the fan base for its projects was “already there, and once you have that in place with strong creative collaboration and of course, great experiences, great stories, great movies, great television series, great narratives, you can create things that stand out in a crowded market.”
The question is no longer can you do it, but can you do more of it, Kreiz said during the interview.
“And of course we can. And of course we are,” he added. “Now it’s about scaling it. And this is exactly the stage we’re at and are very excited by the opportunities ahead.”
