The Beanie Baby craze of the ’90s was something to behold. Millions of people collected as many of the colourful plush bears as they could get their hands on, with some even convinced that they would become lucrative investments. As most of us know someone with a box (or several) of Beanie Babies taking up space in their garage, that investment didn’t exactly pay off. Apple Original Films have dropped the first trailer for The Beanie Bubble, which chronicles the rise of stuffed toys.
The Beanie Bubble stars a beardless Zach Galifianakis (which is still so weird to me) as Ty Warner, the toy manufacturer who would become a billionaire thanks to the Beanie Baby craze in the late 1990s. The Beanie Bubble also stars Elizabeth Banks (Cocaine Bear) as Robbie, Ty’s business partner, Sarah Snook (Succession) as Warner’s wife Sheila, and Geraldine Viswanathan (Miracle Workers) as Ty Inc. employee Maya.
“Why did the world suddenly treat stuffed animals like gold?” reads the official synopsis for The Beanie Bubble. “Ty Warner was a frustrated toy salesman until his collaboration with three women grew his masterstroke of an idea into the biggest toy craze in history. ‘The Beanie Bubble’ is an inventive story about what and who we value, and the unsung heroes whose names didn’t appear on the heart-shaped tag.“
Zach Galifianakis will be lending his voice to Disney’s upcoming live-action remake of Lilo & Stitch, which is currently filming. The original Lilo & Stitch film told the story of a young Hawaiian girl named Lilo and an extraterrestrial dog-like creature known as Experiment 626, who is given the name Stitch after being adopted by Lilo. Although Stitch is a force of chaos and destruction, he eventually develops a close bond with Lilo, and together, the pair avoid the pursuing aliens who have been dispatched to capture him.
Kristin Gore and Damian Kulash Jr. directed The Beanie Bubble, with Gore also penning the script based on The Great Beanie Baby Bubble: Mass Delusion and the Dark Side of Cute by Zac Bissonnette. The film will be released in select theaters on July 21st, before launching globally on Apple TV+ on July 28th.
What did you think of The Beanie Bubble trailer? Are you secretly still hoarding a few Beanie Babies in your house?