Steven Spielberg is producing a Coca-Cola vs. Pepsi movie, in case you were wondering where Hollywood is at right now

To the surprise of absolutely no one, Hollywood appears to have taken the wrong lesson from Barbie's success (it only worked because there was an interesting creative vision behind it), and now we're facing an even deeper sea of slop built around brands. Up next: Cola Wars, from acclaimed producer Steven Spielberg and with comedy master Judd Apatow in the director's chair.

To be fair, Deadline's report states this will be a movie based on the true story behind the Coca-Cola and Pepsi conflict, but who the hell cares anyway?

Spielberg will produce the project, which had been in development for a while at Sony, through his Amblin Entertainment banner. It was bought "as a pitch" for $1 million-plus earlier this year by the studio. Cola Wars (tentative title) is being penned as we speak by Jason Shuman (Apple's Acapulco) and Ben Queen (Netflix's A Note of Explanation). Queen also worked on Cars 2 and 3 for Pixar.

According to Deadline, the movie aims to tell "the true story of Pepsi’s attempt to challenge Coca-Cola’s century-long reign as the world’s top cola. It uncapped the “Cola Wars” of the mid-1980s, which included everything from Michael Jackson’s fiery mishap to the New Coke debacle, as the ultimate underdog tale of history’s most iconic second-place contender (Pepsi) vying for the No. 1 spot (Coca-Cola)." Sure, there's a degree of potential in a chatty, fast-paced 'true story' movie with an all-start cast that deals with two famous brands, but so many of those have fallen flat in the past that I'm not sure why you shouldn't just spend the money developing literally anything else.

For Apatow, it might be a chance to bounce back after his last movie, The Bubble, turned out to be a dud. His spark is alive and well in the realm of comedy TV series, however, so Hollywood hadn't written him off yet. Deadline cites Ben Affleck's Air ("about the battle by Nike to win a shoe deal with Michael Jordan for the sneaker line that transformed the company") as an inspiration for Cola Wars, but Amazon lost a big bag of money on that movie, so this is far from being a sure financial hit. What are we even doing here?