Greta Gerwig's Barbie movie may be poised to walk way with the summer box office — in an invisible heel, no less — but she's tip-toeing in the footprints of giants.

Back in 1987, when he was an an MFA student at Bard College, Todd Haynes co-wrote (with Cynthia Schneider) and directed Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, an experimental biographical short about the last 17 years of the iconic singer's life as she struggled with, and was ultimately consumed by, anorexia — using Barbie dolls.