Barbie has been waiting decades for her Meryl Streep moment

Did you overdose on all the media attention for WB's July 21 launch of "Barbie"? It's understandable, but it has to be given some slack: Mattel and Barbie have been waiting for this moment for decades.

Years ago, Glenn Ross, head of home video at Universal, told Variety that U and Mattel had been thinking about movies as early as 2001: "We knew we had to make Barbie a movie star. It must be the same way you'd feel watching a Meryl Streep movie."

He was talking about animated films in 2007. Direct-to-DVD movies debuted in 2001 and six years later had completed nine titles, each selling over a million copies.

Rob Hudnut, Executive Producer of Mattel, added at the time, "We strongly believe in the power of little girls."

They should too. Barbie has been a slot machine for Mattel since its debut in 1959.

But the live-action film - directed by Greta Gerwig, written by her and Noah Baumbach, and starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling - is aimed at a wider audience than little girls.

In 2007, Variety made a set of stories under the general title "Barbie: Billion-Dollar Brand".

Screenwriter Susanne Ault mentioned the action movie starring the Bratz imitators/competitors, a line of fashion dolls. But Universal and Mattel were in no rush for their own live-action film, according to the article, "they are committed to protecting the Barbie brand and are picky about the doll's plans."

Matel's senior director of distribution and marketing, Barry Waldo, said he's been with the company for nine years and "we've had more calls from producers who want to do a Barbie feature film than I can count. If we feel it's the right time, we'll consider it."

Variety mentioned the doll as early as October 19, 1960, when composer Eliot Daniel was preparing an album of Barbie songs.

There have been random mentions over the years, including two stories in 1996: Mattel had created a division of Barbies designed specifically for adults, dressing her as Maria from "Sound of Music" and other movie characters. There was also a story about the original "Toy Story"; Pixar and Mattel couldn't agree on a proposal for Barbie to save Woody. (Barbie was not in this film, but she and Ken appear in "Toy Story 3.")

Variety's 2007 package detailed the doll's growth into a mini conglomerate.

The story reads: "Like girl anthropologists, Mattel studies and observes how they spend their days...The company then uses this information to determine how best to integrate Barbie into girls' lives, whether with the doll itself, a website, or a movie."

In addition to animated creations, there was an animated television series, as well as partnerships with Armani, Citizens for Humanity and MAC cosmetics (targeting adult women), for example.

The package included nuggets such as the fact that American girls aged 3-10 owned an average of 12 Barbies; that Barbie had 1,000 licensees (only 85 of them in the United States) in 150 countries. And that Vivienne Westwood is perhaps the only designer to have dressed both Barbie and Sid Vicious.

Reporter Ault added, "But Mattel has plenty of new Barbie concepts up its sleeves." Yes, they certainly did.