The Bear’s Ayo Edebiri To Write & Potentially Star In A24 Barney Movie

If you were planning on discounting the upcoming “Barney” movie entirely, you might want to think again — because Ayo Edebiri has been tapped to write the script.

Mattel Films and A24 are teaming up for a “Barney” movie, and not only will Edebiri write it but, according to the press release announcing the news, she may also star in the film as well. (Specifics on Edebiri’s potential role aren’t clear as of this writing.) The movie is also produced by another industry powerhouse in the form of Oscar-winner Daniel Kaluuya, whose company 59% Productions is behind the project. 

This is definitely an encouraging and, frankly, bizarre update (in a good way) when it comes to the “Barney” movie. So, what else do we know? 

Well, in 2023, Kevin McKeon, a Mattel executive, revealed that the movie about the beloved purple dinosaur will be a lot weirder (and cooler?) than you probably expected. After saying the film would be “surrealistic” like one by Charlie Kaufman or Spike Jonze, McKeon explained, “We’re leaning into the millennial angst of the property rather than fine-tuning this for kids. It’s really a play for adults. Not that it’s R-rated, but it’ll focus on some of the trials and tribulations of being 30-something, growing up with Barney — just the level of disenchantment within the generation.” 

Amusingly, McKeon also said it would be an “A24-type” of movie, and now the studio is actively part of the project. Still, the toy company’s Ynon Kreiz later told Semafor that the “Barney” movie would be “fun, entertaining and culturally oriented” and “not be an odd movie,” so there’s that. Let’s just hope McKeon is the one who’s right here.

Just in case you’ve been living on a remote desert island without internet or streaming for the past several years and are somehow unfamiliar with Ayo Edebiri’s body of work, let me quickly refresh your memory. After lending her voice to the animated series “Big Mouth” and appearing in a recurring role on the Apple TV+ series “Dickinson,” Edebiri got her big breakout role in the FX and Hulu collaboration “The Bear,” Chris Storer’s fast-paced dramedy about one small corner of the restaurant industry that pairs Edebiri with Jeremy Allen White. Thanks to her lead role as the young but talented chef Sydney Adamu, Edebiri has won a Golden Globe, an Emmy, and two SAG Awards for her performance. Considering that the show’s fourth season is expected to air in the summer of 2025, it feels pretty likely that she’ll pick up some more nominations soon (and perhaps even another handful of trophies).

Beyond “The Bear,” Edebiri has appeared in indie comedies like “Bottoms” (in which she improvised one of the movie’s best monologues) and “Theater Camp” and turned in great vocal performances in “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem,” and “Inside Out 2.” She’s also made some small screen appearances in projects like “Black Mirror,” “Abbott Elementary,” and “I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson,” and if you’re doubting her writing talent, rest easy; she’s written for comedy series like “What We Do in the Shadows,” as well as the aforementioned “Big Mouth” and “Dickinson.” With the A24 horror comedy “Opus” set to hit theaters on March 14, Edebiri will get yet another chance to show us what she’s made of.

So, basically, her involvement in the “Barney” movie is incredibly exciting.

Ayo Edebiri signing onto the “Barney” movie is certainly cause for excitement — in case this wasn’t apparent, I’m a huge fan of her body of work — but the fact that Daniel Kaluuya has been a part of this wild-sounding project from the very beginning is also extremely cool. Through his fledgling company 59% Productions, Kaluuya has produced projects like “Queen & Slim,” “Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul,” and “The Kitchen,” the last of which he also directed alongside Kibwe Tavares and wrote with Joe Murtagh. Kaluuya has been a major Hollywood player for nearly a decade now, and though he’s personally been pretty tight-lipped about the “Barney” movie — for example, he declined to comment in that New Yorker piece mentioned earlier — we can expect something pretty different and daring just based on his previous work.

Kaluuya really got his start on British shows like “Skins” and the very first season of “Black Mirror.” However, in 2017, the actor led Jordan Peele’s directorial debut “Get Out,” and the rest is history. For his outstanding performance as a man named Chris who visits his girlfriend’s family and makes a bunch of very unsettling discoveries, Kaluuya earned his first Oscar nomination, and he’d pick up a second — and his first win — a few years later for his performance as the real-life Black Panther leader Fred Hampton in 2021’s “Judas and the Black Messiah,” taking home a statue for Best Supporting Actor. Kaluuya’s filmography is similarly stocked with ambitious projects like “Black Panther,” “Widows,” “Nope,” and — like Edebiri — “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” so it seems like Kaluuya’s work as executive producer on this mysterious “Barney” movie could be pretty incredible. 

For the time being, we can simply let our minds wonder about what sort of strangeness Edebiri and Kaluuya will provide when their “Barney” movie eventually comes out.