The American Girl doll line was around since the 1980s. Young girls customize their dolls to get an American Girl that resembles them. Girls can also choose a doll from the main historical collection. Each of these dolls is a specific character and each of these girls represents a different era of American history. Each of these historical dolls has a book based on her character. There are also a few characters that are supposed to represent contemporary times.

The popularity of the doll line led to several film adaptations of the historical girl dolls, the first of these being Samantha: An American Girl Holiday. Most of these films were either made for television movies or went straight to DVD films with the exception of Kit Kittredge: An American Girl which was released in theaters with the help of New Line Cinema.

According to Entertainment Weekly, Mattel teamed up with MGM to create a new American Girl movie. As of right now, this upcoming movie is at a very early stage of production. Not much is currently known about this new movie but it is rumored that this movie will have an original story and not be based on any of the stories or books about the historical dolls. However, there are still historical dolls that do not have their own movies so it is possible that this new movie will be about one of them.