Beyond the rhetoric of “if we have to do it, it must turn out well“, the long timelines to set in motion a predictable sequel to Barbie with Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, directed by Greta Gerwig, continue to astonish. The suspended fate of Warner Bros., waiting for its acquisition by Paramount Skydance to be completed, won’t help matters, but it is only natural that the president of Mattel Studios, Robbie Brenner, was asked for clarity about Barbie 2 during one of the Market sessions at the Toronto International Film Festival. There is no better source to help us understand.
Barbie 2 Must Start By the End of 2026, Otherwise Everything Resets
Even the timelines aren’t easy: not only Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling are perpetually tied up, but the thoughts of their director Greta Gerwig have lately been all for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew, the fantasy epic that is closing for Netflix (in theaters February 12). It’s necessary to bring many people to agreement, but in other cases the will would not be lacking: Barbie in 2023 grossed worldwide 1,450,000,000 dollars, against a budget of 140 million. Which major would back away from a sequel? Certainly not Warner Bros., whether inside or outside Paramount Skydance. Brenner explains: “We all want to see the Barbie sequel, I want to see it too. I’m sure that in the future, sooner or later, there will be one.” For now, we are focusing on an animated Barbie film, produced with Chris Meledandri [the Illumination studio behind Minions and Super Mario, editor’s note]. And that is really exciting, then we will continue to do other things with Barbie.”
As we have become accustomed to reading between the lines of ambiguous statements, this vagueness with a tang of resignation (“sooner or later there will be one”) does not bode well. According to the New York Times, Barbie 2 really risks being scrapped if by the end of the year there aren’t signed contracts and work has not commenced: it appears (though there are no confirmations) that the agreement between Mattel and Warner Bros. sets the end of 2026 as the deadline to move forward. Starting in 2027, if nothing happens, the film rights revert to Mattel, which by contract could not produce a sequel with another production company, and would be forced into a reboot. Hollywood red tape.
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