{"id":840895,"date":"2026-08-01T18:38:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T18:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/840895\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T18:38:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T18:38:08","slug":"barbie-2-stalls-as-david-zaslav-wont-approve-bigger-salaries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/840895\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Barbie 2’ Stalls as David Zaslav Won’t Approve Bigger Salaries"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tWhen a movie makes more than $1.4 billion at the box office and earns eight Academy Award nominations, the studio is going to want to make a sequel. Such was the case with Warner Bros. and \u201cBarbie<\/a>.\u201d But time is running out for the studio to put Margot Robbie<\/a> back in pink.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a new report, The New York Times<\/a> reveals that Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav has balked at giving Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling<\/a> rich deals with profit participation for the second film. Gosling, who was nominated for a best supporting actor Oscar for his role as Ken, is angling to raise his pay to $20 million. A Warner Bros. spokesperson notes that there was never an agreed-upon framework that was approved and pulled back.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a rare move, Warner Bros. didn\u2019t require the stars of \u201cBarbie\u201d to commit to sequels as they only signed a one-movie deal to land Greta Gerwig<\/a> as the film\u2019s director. (\u201cBarbie\u201d had experienced many false starts over the years until Gerwig provided her feminist take on the popular toy.)<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Times report notes that Gerwig and her husband and \u201cBarbie\u201d writing partner Noah Baumbach have an idea for the new movie, but won\u2019t share the concept with the studio until the deals are complete. Warner Bros. is on a mission to get its deals in place before the rights revert to Mattel in December. However, if the studio doesn\u2019t come to terms with the \u201cBarbie\u201d crew by that deadline, Mattel would have to redevelop the IP for a new movie \u2014 meaning a new filmmaker, new cast and new concept.<\/p>\n

\n\tWarner Bros. co-chairs, Pam Abdy and Michael De Luca, confirmed the talks in a statement: \u201cWe have a rights deal with Mattel in place and have made a series of big offers to try and finalize deals to make the next \u2018Barbie\u2019 film. Unfortunately, we have been unable to reach an agreement thus far.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOver three years, the studio has made a half dozen offers to the creative team behind \u201cBarbie.\u201d The talent\u2019s reps declined the most recent offer, which is among the biggest Warner Bros. has made for a film. No counter has been made to date.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile it might seem like CAA \u2014\u00a0which represents Gerwig, Baumbach, Robbie and Gosling \u2014 is playing hardball, it\u2019s standard practice to renegotiate contracts when a sequel wasn\u2019t included in the original paperwork, as was the case for \u201cBarbie.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe blockbuster movie, released in July 2023, catapulted filmmaker Gerwig, producer-star Robbie and Gosling to new heights and was a huge win for Mattel, which owns the rights to the fashion doll, too \u2014 especially as the toy brand aims to stake its claim in Hollywood.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s funny, that knee-jerk reaction in this day and age for everyone to immediately ask about a sequel,\u201d Robbie told Variety for a 2024 cover story,<\/a> heralding her production company LuckyChap as showpersons of the year. \u201cI don\u2019t think it was like that 20 years ago. This wasn\u2019t designed to be a trilogy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThat said, all parties were open to the idea of more pink-hued adventures, but nothing could happen unless Gerwig and Baumbach came back with another great idea.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cEverything went into \u2018Barbie\u2019 \u2014 and that\u2019s how Greta works,\u201d Robbie said at the time. \u201cShe finishes every movie on empty, feeling like she could never make another movie because she put everything she had into that one. So I don\u2019t know what it would take to fill that cup up again for her. Or for us. I think Warners would also agree. I don\u2019t know what more could even look like. We want to make more films that have the effect that \u2018Barbie\u2019 has.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn an interesting coincidence, the \u201cBarbie 2\u201d report comes as \u201cSpider-Man: Brand New Day\u201d breaks box office records, because there\u2019s a universe where that movie never happened. Remember 2019, when Sony and Marvel\u2019s agreement to co-finance and creatively produce Tom Holland\u2019s \u201cSpider-Man\u201d movies; following public outcry (and tears of Holland\u2019s own), the two parties came back to the negotiating table and hammered out a new deal. The resulting films, 2021\u2019s \u201cSpider-Man: No Way Home,\u201d stand as the franchise\u2019s highest-grossing film, with $1.9 billion worldwide, and \u201cBrand New Day\u201d looks to reach or surpass those numbers. So, reaching an agreement on a \u201cBarbie\u201d sequel will likely prove lucrative for all parties involved. <\/p>\n

\n\tWhile December is the deadline for a new \u201cBarbie\u201d movie to get into development, production on the sequel would still be a ways away. Robbie is in production on her \u201cOcean\u2019s 11\u201d prequel for Warner Bros. (set to release in June 2027), while Gosling just announced he\u2019ll star in Marvel\u2019s \u201cGhost Rider\u201d movie (dated for 2028) and has to promote Disney\u2019s \u201cStar Wars: Starfighter\u201d (in theaters May 28, 2027). Gerwig will also be heading out on a promo tour for her latest film, Netflix\u2019s \u201cNarnia,\u201d early next year.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat said, LuckyChap is a consistent producing partner across Warner Bros.\u2019 slate, delivering \u201cWuthering Heights\u201d earlier this year, currently in production on \u201cOceans\u201d and producing the film \u201cNasty,\u201d starring Rose Byrne and Jenna Ortega, for the studio\u2019s recently launched Clockwork label. Likewise, Warner Bros. continues to engage in a close partnership with Mattel, including a Hot Wheels project in development.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When a movie makes more than $1.4 billion at the box office and earns eight Academy Award nominations,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":840896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[4527,49,48,75,168011,17831,1354],"class_list":["post-840895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-barbie","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-greta-gerwig","tag-margot-robbie","tag-ryan-gosling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=840895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/840896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=840895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=840895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=840895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}