![Ryan Gosling, Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie attend the press junket and photo call For](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/GettyImages-1501914937-H-2023.jpg?w=1024)
‘Barbie’ star Ryan Gosling, filmmaker Greta Gerwig and producer-star Margot Robbie
Jon Kopaloff/Getty Pictures
Warner Bros.’ Barbie is an unabashed phenomenon, each as a film and a popular culture motion. It is just days away from hitting the $1 billion greenback mark on the worldwide field workplace after crossing $900 million Thursday.
In any regular circumstances, the studio behind such a success would touting {that a} sequel is in growth. Paramount Footage, for instance, introduced a sequel to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem every week earlier than it hit theaters.
Nevertheless, Barbie is just not like different films. It was launched in uncommon circumstances, with the double whammy of a writers and an actors strike, complicating any announcement of a returning artistic group or stars.
And in a uncommon circumstance for a film based mostly on a serious piece of mental property, the expertise that made the film successful shouldn’t have offers in place for a sequel. That runs counter the considering behind large franchise performs from Marvel or Star Wars or Transformers, which snap up their expertise in choices, typically onerously so.
Margot Robbie, who introduced the long-lasting toy to life on-screen and was one of many producers through her LuckyChap banner alongside husband Tom Ackerley, doesn’t have an possibility and isn’t obligated to return as Barbie. She may return simply as a producer, if she so desired. Whereas her appearing price and her field workplace bonuses are unknown, any new deal can be a bankbuster. And, as observers observe, merchandizing factors may find yourself on the desk.
Ryan Gosling, who performed the scene-stealing Ken, additionally has no deal for a sequel. Gosling’s place is just not uncommon because the actor is understood for his “one and achieved” ethos and his common aversion for giant studio tentpoles. The actor has been courted for starring roles in large IP productions earlier than, however even Gosling is sport for one thing, the “no sequel” perspective stops deal speak in its tracks.
Then there’s the film’s ringmaster, Greta Gerwig, who co-wrote the film with accomplice Noah Baumbach and directed the high-wire act.
Gerwig additionally has no deal for any sequel (neither does Baumbach). Sources say that a number of months earlier than the film’s July 21 opening, the studio made overtures concerning a sequel in a directing capability however her reps at UTA deftly put that off till Barbie got here out. With a film now about to hit $1 billion, that could possibly be find yourself as one of many smartest agenting strikes of the 12 months.
Barbie has turn into a tectonic-plate transferring drive on the field workplace in a method that few may have predicted. And whereas Robbie and Gerwig believed in what they’d, there was many potential potholes the group’s pink Corvette needed to keep away from on the street to field workplace gold.
The film was first greenlit after which made underneath the studio regime run by Toby Emmerich, his COO Carolyn Blackwood, and executives Courtenay Valenti and Cate Adams. It was this group who needed to persuade the remainder of the corporate {that a} characteristic challenge that had no earlier comps can be viable and finally moved the funds from a proposed $80 million to $140 million.
When Warners merged with Discovery within the spring of 2022, the film, which was mid-production, may have fallen to the blustery winds of regime change like another of the studio’s films (see: Batgirl or Black Adam) however new heads Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy took custody of the Malibu dream home, understanding what the film was and what it was saying, giving the filmmakers leeway to search out itself in post-production course of (too many patriarchy jokes? not sufficient patriarchy jokes?). The studio then undertook a advertising marketing campaign that straddled a positive line with is messaging.
The early tagline “For those who love Barbie…for those who hate Barbie, this film is for you,” for instance, was not a straightforward promote to toymaker Mattel, which naturally bristled on the phrases “hate” and “Barbie” in the identical breath. However Mattel movie head and producer Robbie Brenner was in a position to pave the way in which contained in the toy big.
In the midst of this had been Robbie and LuckyChap — who introduced the challenge to Warners as a producer in 2018 after the rights lapsed at Sony — and Gerwig, employed in 2021. In an indication of how very important the Robbie-Gerwig group is to the challenge and its future, Robbie solely dedicated to star in Barbie after Gerwig signed on to direct and needed her to behave in it. The duo then set their sights on a demurring Gosling, unrelentingly courting the actor till he stated sure.
Gerwig spent months in post-production attempting to stroll that razor-thin line of the films’ tones – broad comedy, camp, humanism, musical – and frequently shaping the characteristic into one thing that transcended its two-quadrant beginnings and into one thing that had deep enchantment and engendered repeat viewings. It did so whereas chatting with an viewers that doesn’t repeatedly get spoken to and should forge a path for different feminine filmmakers and female-POV tales. After which there’s the early awards speak.
Which then circles again to the sequel. The strikes have nixed any likelihood of negotiations. Its field workplace climb solely helps the expertise on this case. And it’s all letting Gerwig recharge and revel in Barbieland
“At this second, it’s all I‘ve obtained,” she just lately told the New York Times. “I really feel like that on the finish of each film, like I’ll by no means have one other thought and every thing I’ve ever needed to do, I did. I wouldn’t wish to squash anyone else’s dream however for me, at this second, I’m at completely zero.”
And when the events return to the true world and talks flip to a sequel, count on to see quite a lot of zeroes behind a primary quantity or two.