{"id":844460,"date":"2026-08-03T13:46:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T13:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/844460\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T13:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T13:46:08","slug":"barbie-sequel-at-risk-as-salary-talks-with-robbie-gosling-and-gerwig-hit-impasse-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/844460\/","title":{"rendered":"Barbie sequel at risk as salary talks with Robbie, Gosling and Gerwig hit impasse | Movies"},"content":{"rendered":"

The comedy mega-hit Barbie made an estimated $1.5bn (\u00a31.1bn) at the box office, was nominated for eight Academy Awards and \u2013 alongside the biopic Oppenheimer \u2013 dominated the culture during the summer of 2023. A sequel had seemed a foregone conclusion. However, the development of Barbie 2 has stalled over salary negotiations, putting the entire project in jeopardy, according to a report in the New York Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, the first film\u2019s stars, and its director and co-writer Greta Gerwig, are yet to agree on terms. Gosling, who was nominated for a best supporting actor Oscar for his performance as Barbie\u2019s boyfriend Ken, is reportedly asking for $20m (\u00a314.8m) to return to the role. All three are represented by the same talent agency, CAA.<\/p>\n

The film rights to Barbie are due to revert to Mattel, the toy company that manufactures the doll, if Warner Bros<\/a> does not get deals in place with all three of them by December. The film studio\u2019s co-chairs, Pam Abdy and Michael De Luca, said in a statement: \u201cWe have a rights deal with Mattel in place and have made a series of big offers to try and finalise deals to make the next Barbie film. Unfortunately, we have been unable to reach an agreement thus far.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the rights were to return to Mattel and it wanted to make another Barbie<\/a> film with a different studio, it would be unable to incorporate any original story elements from the first film, and Robbie, Gosling and Gerwig could not be involved.<\/p>\n

As well as being the biggest hit of 2023, the highest-grossing live-action comedy ever and the 18th highest-grossing film in history, Barbie is also Warner Bros\u2019s best-performing film. However, the studio only signed a one-movie deal with Gerwig and did not require the stars to commit to any sequels. \u201cWe didn\u2019t build it to be a trilogy or something \u2026 We put everything into this one,\u201d Robbie told Associated Press<\/a> at the time. But Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, her writing partner and husband, have now said they do have an idea for a sequel, and are ready to begin writing if terms can be agreed.<\/p>\n

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Some of Warner Bros\u2019s more recent high-budget productions, including the DC Comics film Supergirl<\/a> and The Bride<\/a>, a feminist reworking of Frankenstein, underperformed at the box office this year and failed to recoup their costs. The studio also had its planned merger with Paramount put on hold<\/a> last month, after a group of 12 US states won a temporary injunction in their efforts to block the deal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The comedy mega-hit Barbie made an estimated $1.5bn (\u00a31.1bn) at the box office, was nominated for eight Academy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":844461,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[49,48,75],"class_list":["post-844460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844460","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=844460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/844461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=844460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=844460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=844460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}