What do the movies Barbie, Saltburn, Me, Tonya or the series Maid have in common? In addition to the fact that they all became hits, they also have another common factor, namely the Australian actress and producer Margot Robbie. How did her production company LuckyChap come about and why do we need such companies?
The production company LuckyChap Entertainment was founded in 2014 to tell stories about women by Margot Robbie, Sophia Kerr and assistant directors Tom Ackerley and Josey McNamara.
The idea was said to have been born at the after-party of the premiere of The Wolf of Wall Street, the project on which the foursome met. Maybe that’s why none of them remember how exactly they came up with the name LuckyChap, but it is said to be inspired by Charlie Chaplin.
The company’s first success came in 2017 with the release of I, Tonya, which won an Oscar and a Golden Globe. In 2018, the film Konečná followed and a year later the successful Land of Dreams. During the following years, the company worked for example on the films Birds of Prey (The Amazing Transformation of Harley Quinn) or The Promising Young Woman.
In 2021, the first series of the series The Maid, based on the memoirs of writer Stephanie Land, also premiered. The series soon became the most watched on Netflix and replaced the popular King’s Gambit, which at the time ruled in sixty-two countries.
But Barbie, the phenomenon of 2023 and the film that grossed $1.4 billion worldwide, became the top-grossing film of last year.
According to reporter and expert on American cinema Veronika Bednářová, the success of Barbie lies in how the film is well-written, funny, playful, bohemianly open and speaks to all generations.
“Barbie would have been difficult to create without LuckyChap. Its critical and commercial success is the culmination of six years of hard work by the company. She got an option on the original Barbie material and asked Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach to write the script,” explains Bednářová.
And she adds that Robbie is really not just a producer at LuckyChap: she is involved in managing filming schedules, watching over budgets, and in the case of Barbie, she even monitored the number of liters of pink paint needed to cover the sets of Barbieland.
Although Barbie attracted crowds to the cinemas, Robbie was absent from the Oscar nominations for acting in the main role, as was Greta Gerwig among the female directors, which angered many.
“Academics seem to think that a commercial mega-success is enough for them: after all, at the Golden Globes Barbie did not win the award for best comedy or musical, but she did leave with the newly created award for movie box office success,” says Bednářová.
And he adds another theory: “The decision of the academics could also be translated as follows: women can direct films, but they should not earn more from them than men. The fact that Gerwig and Robbie were both nominated as producers of Barbie in the Best Film category is also important.”
However, she is surprised that Gosling received the nomination despite this. “That sounds somewhat absurd, and even Gosling himself let it be known that without Gerwig and Robbie, no movie about Barbie would have been created,” says Bednářová.
At the end of 2023, the company still had time to release another popular film, the thriller Saltburn directed by Emerald Fennell and starring Barry Keoghan and Jacob Elordi. It became a hot trend on TikTok and received two Golden Globe nominations.
There are a lot of production companies – just mention the giants like DreamWorks, Paramount or Lionsgate. So why is it important that new ones are constantly emerging, especially thanks to Hollywood actresses in recent years?
In particular, we can mention Fifty-Fifty Films of Euphoria star Sydney Sweeney, who is behind, for example, Never With You, which earned over 200 million dollars in less than two months.
As others, for example, TeaTime Pictures, the main protagonist of Fifty Shades of Grey, Dakota Johnson, Flower Films, another American star, Drew Barrymore, or Handsomecharlie Films, which is behind Natalie Portman.
According to Bednářová, it’s no wonder that actresses want to start production companies. They crave more creative control when they’re not just the directors’ puppets.
For the films they produce, they can partially influence the plot, characters and the overall tone of the film, they can more actively enter the preparatory process of the film, among other things, thanks to their own financial influence.
Producing one’s own films also provides actresses with opportunities for more challenging or unconventional (and often lead) roles that are not as readily available through traditional casting processes.
An example can now be seen in cinemas with Emma Stone in the film Poor People directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, which she co-produced: “This producer’s casting of leading roles has not yet significantly exceeded the tolerable level of taste anywhere, so actress-producers are definitely not ‘buying’ roles through their production activities – business is better than nepotism,” Bednářová assesses.
In particular, Robbie’s story is reminiscent of the actress Reese Witherspoon, who founded the production company Hello Sunshine with the aim of playing strong female characters that were not offered to her elsewhere (for example, the TV series Sedmilářky or the movie Missing were released under Hello Sunshine).
Robbie, and therefore LuckyChap, aims to support female producers, actresses and especially female directors, thus giving women (and their creative visions) a space that they probably wouldn’t get elsewhere.
“The proof is, for example, Barbie. I wanted to have the main word. To make sure that the script and the movie that I fell in love with would go in exactly the direction that the director wanted it to go,” explained Robbie in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
LuckyChap thus opens the door to projects trying to capture the world through the experiences of women, projects reflecting women’s values and perspectives, projects with female leadership. In doing so, she supports and shapes images that not only bring authentic female perspectives to the fore, but also actively transcend traditional gender stereotypes in Hollywood.
“For actresses, their own production company is an ideal way to participate more actively in shaping a more diverse film industry and to create opportunities for themselves and other talents,” declares Bednářová.
And he doesn’t just mean young women. “But also middle-aged or older actresses, people other than white and members of the LGBTQ+ community,” Bednářová adds.