After Barbenheimer detonated like a bright pink thermonuclear bomb at the box office back in the summer of 2023, pretty much everyone assumed Warner Bros. would be moving swiftly forward with a sequel to its half of that unlikely equation: Greta Gerwig’s Barbie. Satirical comedies capable of grossing $1.4 billion at the international box office don’t come along every day, after all, and Gerwig, co-writer Noah Baumbach, and stars Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling all (eventually) sounded tentatively game for a return trip to Barbieland. Instead, we’re sitting here three years later, and the sequel isn’t even officially in development—reportedly due to Warner Bros. CEO David Zaslav getting a little tight-fisted when it comes to deals.
This is per THR, which reports that Warner Bros. is now just five months away from losing its rights to make another Barbie movie, which revert to toy company Mattel in December. This, despite the fact that Gerwig and Baumbach (after initially denying it) have apparently said they have another story they want to tell in this bright pink plastic universe—for the right price. Although sources from the studio itself (which is currently weathering chaos as state regulators work to block its attempts to sell itself to the highest bidders at Paramount) discount the reports, THR says that ol’ David Tax Write-Off has rejected deals set up for the film’s principals for being “too generous.” A lot of this back-and-forth reportedly relates to profit-sharing, as the current deals on the table include increased compensation and profit participation for all involved if the sequel hits certain box office targets. (Which sounds like a version of the system Disney used to keep its Marvel stable of actors happily locked down for years, where big bonuses get tossed out when movies hit certain performance milestones.)
Warner Bros.—which claims that any delays right now are the fault of talent, who reportedly rejected an offer in March and haven’t made a counter—is stuck in this position, as it happens, because it didn’t lock Gerwig, Baumbach, Robbie, and Gosling down for a sequel when the first Barbie was being developed; the studio was hot enough on Gerwig both writing and directing the movie that, when she and her stars pushed back on a sequel guarantee, they gave in in order to make the first movie happen.
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