- Mattel’s Matchbox movie has a director, Sam Hargrave.
- An experienced stunt coordinator, as well as the director of the Extraction franchise, Hargrave will doubtless bring high-octane action to the Matchbox film.
- No plot elements have yet been revealed, but Mattel previously said the film would be appropriate for viewers of all ages.
Ditch your trading card binders and dust off those dusty Hot Wheels in the attic – childhood toy nostalgia is getting a Hollywood glow-up, just like the recent live-action Barbie film. The world of miniature car mayhem is next in line for a big-budget makeover, and while the plot of the upcoming movie based on Mattel’s classic Matchbox line remains under wraps, we now have our first clue as to its high-octane vibe: the film will be directed by Sam Hargrave.
Hargrave’s career as a director has been short so far, and the only feature-length movies he’s been in charge of are Extraction and Extraction II, the action films starring Chris Hemsworth. However, he has been in Hollywood for a while now, and served as the stunt or fight coordinator for major films like Avengers: Endgame, Atomic Blonde, Suicide Squad, Deadpool 2, and many more.
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Now, Hargrave will be also be in charge of the live-action Matchbox movie, which is being written by David Coggeshall and Jonathan Tropper, Deadline reports. The latter two may bring some humor into the mix, with Coggeshall most recently writing The Family Plan, an action comedy starring Mark Wahlberg and Michelle Monaghan, while Tropper wrote The Adam Project, an action adventure comedy starring Ryan Reynolds.
Unfortunately, no information on the plot has yet been shared publicly, but Don Granger, the president of feature films at Skydance, the production company behind the Matchbox movie, said the film will feature “elevated action-adventure entertainment” when it was first announced in 2022.
However, Mattel says that the film will be aimed at entertaining viewers “of all ages,” which makes sense, since it’s based on a children’s toy. The Matchbox brand was founded in 1953, after auto enthusiast Jack Odell decided to try and create a scale model that his daughter could bring to school.
Per the rules of the institution, she was only allowed to play with toys that could fit in a matchbox, so the model cars had to be small. Odell succeeded, and his daughter quickly became the envy of the school yard, launching the die-cast toy brand, which is now owned by Mattel.
The toy conglomerate is on a bit of a movie blitz, following the success of the Barbie movie. In addition to the Matchbox movie, films focusing on toys like Hot Wheels, Magic 8 Ball, Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots, American Girl, and more are all under development.
