Although David Ellison has spent the last year or so swearing to anybody who’ll listen that he just really loves movies—hence his raging desire to own an absolutely gobsmacking amount of the Hollywood infrastructure that produces them—the entire Paramount-Warner Bros.-Skydance thing has been pretty distracting from the craft of actual moviemaking. But Ellison and his team (including new co-CEO, and former head of Mattel, Ynon Kreiz) know what you all really want. You want another Barbie movie. Uh, right?
This is per Variety, quoting an unnamed source from within the combined corporate behemoth that’s said that at least one of Ellison’s priorities, now that all roadblocks to the sale have finally been eradicated, is to stop screwing around about budgets and arguments over how much everybody’s getting paid and just get another damn Barbie movie made. This isn’t hugely surprising: Not only was Greta Gerwig’s film Warner Bros.’ highest-grossing movie ever, but Kreiz also had a hand in its creation, helping to pick star and producer Margot Robbie; between those two factors, it’s easy to see why Barbie 2 might be a solid way to project the idea that business as usual is happening at, ugh, “Skydance.”
What’s ironic about all this, meanwhile, is that the film executives who were actually minding the store when Barbie made all that money for Warner Bros. have reportedly gotten the axe today. Because while Pamela Abdy and Michael “Please Stop Bringing Up That I Wrote The Worst Episode Of Star Trek: Voyager” De Luca weren’t the ones that greenlit the film—that happened before they took over as Warner Bros. Motion Pictures Group co-CEOs in 2022—they were the ones who oversaw its rollout and marketing. The duo also got generally high marks for the first few years of WB’s theatrical performance under their tenure, including a 2025 that saw them score huge box office wins with A Minecraft Movie and big critical hauls courtesy of Sinners and Best Picture winner One Battle After Another. But their 2026 has been just dismal at the box office, starting with the Robbie-starring Wuthering Heights and running through fiscal failures like Mortal Kombat II, Supergirl, and more. Ellison reportedly gave Abdy and De Luca the news that they were getting the boot in person earlier this week, several days before actually taking legal ownership of the studio; their last day at Warner Bros. was reportedly on Friday.
Anyway: Barbie 2! “I’m (Still) Just Ken”! This is what you all wanted! Right?!
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