A sequel to Greta Gerwig’s box office sensation Barbie is reportedly in limbo due to stalled negotiations over its stars’ salaries.
Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling led the 2023 movie as Mattel’s iconic toy dolls Barbie and Ken, respectively.
The Warner Bros. production earned more than $1.4 billion at the box office and garnered eight Oscar nominations.
However, the film studio is in a race against time as the rights to Barbie will revert to Mattel if it does not make a deal with the principal talent for a sequel by December, The New York Times reports.
According to The Times, Warner Bros heads have been negotiating with Robbie, Gosling and Gerwig for months without success.
Two people familiar with the talks told The Times that Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav rejected offers that included a cut of the profits for the film’s stars provided it hit a box office target and a massive upfront payday of $20 million for Gosling.
In a statement to The Independent, a Warner Bros spokesperson disputed that Zazlav had “balked” at the terms, per the The Times’ reporting.
“Over three years, a half dozen offers have been made by WB to the creative team behind the original Barbie movie. There was never an agreed upon framework that was approved and pulled back. 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,” the spokesperson added.
“With respect to Mattel’s rights, they cannot move toward [sic] with any of the original elements from the first film in the event the rights were to revert.”
The Independent has contacted representatives for Robbie, Gosling and Warner Bros for comment.
The first film followed Robbie’s Stereotypical Barbie as she leaves the utopian Barbieland for the real world to fix an existential crisis.
It became one of just 53 movies in box office history to make over $1 billion, not accounting for inflation, and the biggest to be directed by a woman.
Robbie produced the film via her production company, LuckyChap Entertainment, which she founded in 2014 with her now-husband, Tom Ackerley. LuckyChap is a consistent producing partner with Warner Bros., delivering Wuthering Heights in early 2025, currently in production on Oceans (in which Robbie also stars) set to release June of 2027, and will produce the film Nasty for the studio’s recently launched Clockwork label. Warner Bros also has a Hot Wheels project in development with Mattel.
According to three Variety sources, Robbie earned around $50 million from the first film in salary and box office bonuses.
The film transcended the box office to become a cultural moment, fuelled by its instantly recognisable pink branding, inventive marketing and its unlikely pairing with Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer — a phenomenon that inspired the “Barbenheimer” nickname.
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