Skydance Starts Bringing Back the Barbie Team for a Possible Sequel

A Barbie follow-up is once again being discussed at the studio level. Days before Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery complete their merger, Paramount Pictures executives Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein have started reaching out to key people behind the 2023 film, including Margot Robbie and her company LuckyChap Entertainment. One source tells Variety that work on a Barbie 2 deal has already begun. Variety Australia

That does not mean the film is going into production yet. No contracts have been signed with Greta Gerwig, Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling or Noah Baumbach, and there is no official sequel announcement or release date.

Earlier Talks Stalled Over Money

Warner Bros. spent three years trying to assemble the team behind the original Barbie. According to Variety, the studio made more than six offers, but the two sides never reached a deal. The last package could have been one of the biggest in Warner Bros. history for the director, writer and lead actors of a single project, though the outlet’s sources disagreed on how large it was. Variety Australia

The main obstacle was the financial terms, particularly the participants’ share of the film’s future revenue. Gerwig and Baumbach have already come up with a concept for the sequel, but they do not plan to reveal it to the studio until contracts are signed.

The structure of the original deals adds another complication: the key people behind the first Barbie are not obligated to return for a sequel. That gives them considerably more leverage in negotiations after the original film grossed more than $1.4 billion and became the highest-grossing release in Warner Bros. history. Variety Australia

The New Skydance Has a Reason to Move Fast

Warner Bros. has limited time left to move the next Barbie film into active development. Variety reported that without a new deal, the rights to the film could revert to Mattel, and the company would not simply be able to continue Gerwig’s version and would have to start the project from scratch. Variety Australia

A change in leadership could shift the talks. Once the deal closes, the combined Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery will operate under the corporate name Skydance, while the Paramount and Warner Bros. brands themselves will remain. The deal, worth about $110 billion, is expected to close on October 6. Reuters also confirms that Ynon Kreiz, who led Mattel during the making and release of the first Barbie, will become co-CEO. Reuters

So the situation around the sequel has indeed changed, but a full-fledged Barbie 2 is still a long way off: for now, the studio is mainly trying to bring back the team without which a follow-up to the 2023 film could turn out to be a very different project.