AceShowbiz - A scene deleted from "Barbie" would have shown Midge giving birth. The character was launched by Mattel in 1963 as their flagship doll's best friend and a now-discontinued pregnant version of the doll was played by Emerald Fennell in Greta Gerwig's summer comedy based on the toy franchise.

Behind-the-scene photos of the film seen on a corkboard in an "Art of the Cut" interview with editor Nick Houy have now revealed that there were plans for Midge to give birth in a post-credits joke for the film, alongside Dame Helen Mirren - who appears as the Narrator - as a midwife.

Other scenes cut from the fantasy comedy - which sees Barbie discover what it means to be human after leaving Barbie Land - included a "fart opera" but the joke was cut due to a poor reception at a test screening, according to Greta.

She told IndieWire, "We've always tried to get in a proper fart joke and we've never done it. We had like a fart opera in the middle [of 'Barbie']. I thought it was really funny. And that was not the consensus."

Since its release in the middle of July, 'Barbie' - which stars Margot Robbie as the titular doll alongside Ryan Gosling as her boyfriend Ken, and features appearances from other A-Listers such as Dua Lipa, Nicola Coughlan, and Will Ferrell - has grossed more than $774 million at the box office and it is thought that it will eventually surpass the $1 billion mark.

Prior to its release, Greta told Collider, "I think my pitch in the green-light meeting was the studios have prospered so much when they're brave enough to pair a big idea with a visionary director."

"And then I gave a series of examples like, 'dinosaurs and [Steven] Spielberg' - pretty much naming anything that's been incredible and made a ton of money for the studios over the years. And I was like, 'And now you've got Barbie and Greta Gerwig.' And I think I told them that it'd make a billion dollars, which maybe I was overselling, but we had a movie to make, okay?"