Among the long list of great performances from the Barbie cast is Michael Cera’s Allan, who steals the show a few times throughout Greta Gerwig’s movie as the unique doll living amongst Barbies and Kens. However, it was recently revealed the character was almost the center of an incredibly clever callback to Jaws that somehow didn’t make the movie. Excuse me, but how?
Barbie’s cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto revealed the deleted scene after sharing how there were “so many moments” that were shot for the biggest film on the 2023 movie schedule that had to be removed, likely to slim it down to its under two-hour runtime (which ended up at one hour, 54 minutes). Check out what Prieto told Variety about one cut Allan scene that sounded amazing:
We did this shot on Allan that emulated ‘Jaws.’ He’s terrified [when] Ken hits a wave and then flies in the air. There’s a moment where the police officer sees someone being eaten in the water. The camera does this push-in, it’s a move where you use a zoom and you’re dialing into the character while zooming back at the same time. The effect is that the background changes — the shot, and his performance, [were] very dramatic.
As is, Barbie already has tons of great references to classic movies. From the opening scene that emulates Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, to nods to movies like Singin’ in the Rain and Grease in the very memorable “I’m Just Ken” sequence, Greta Gerwig clearly loved a reference in Barbie. Along with all these references, Prieto shared that they also did their own take on the famed beach sequence from Steven Speilberg’s 1975 classic. Check out the scene Barbie would have cited:
I Just Learned One Of My Favorite Barbie Scenes Could’ve Been Cut And Thank You Greta Gerwig For Fighting For It
The effect with Rob Schneider is called the dolly zoom or “vertigo effect.” It’s a very famous moment in cinematic history that is often referenced by filmmakers and very much referenced and pointed to at film schools. In the instance of Barbie, it sounds like toward the beginning of the movie when all the Barbies and Kens are at the beach when Ken gets injured, the effect was going to happen against Allan’s concerned reaction, which would obviously have been hilarious.
Prieto shared that the Barbie director “could not stop laughing when we shot it,” and she would even ask the video assistant to “replay it for her just to laugh.” While Greta Gerwig was clearly happy with how the scene looked when the vertigo effect was achieved on the Barbie set, for some reason it was removed from the movie and never made it to the final cut. Hey, not every scene can make the final cut of a movie, but I can’t help but feel like we were robbed of a glorious Allan moment and sublime Jaws reference.
Barbie is currently available to rent and buy on digital, and it is back in theaters in IMAX for the first time, this week only.