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Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach found themselves in the strange position tonight of having to aggressively deny their own creativity: the husband-and-wife team (who co-wrote the script for Gerwig’s massive 2023 blockbuster Barbie) deny that they have come up with an idea they are happy with for a sequel to the bright pink pop satire, and have told it to Warner Bros. submitted. Warner Bros. also denies the gross accusations, published in The Hollywood Reporterthat they would love to make a sequel to a movie that made $1.4 billion from an IP that had previously been relegated almost exclusively to direct-to-DVD shodelware. “There is no legitimacy in this reporting,” Gerwig and Baumbach’s representative said in response to unsubstantiated accusations of a good idea and early talks about making a film. Warner Bros. seemed outraged by the very idea.
This all sounds pretty much like the kind of language people use when there’s no deal yetbut that may be the truth of all that talk: after all, it’s hard to imagine that there isn’t Barbie 2 ever. It’s just the nature of modern Hollywood, where they won’t let you make that much money on a movie without pushing hard to generate a sequel. And while you can fight back against the process – perhaps what Todd Phillips did was by a joker sequel specifically designed to piss off anyone who liked their first film – it doesn’t feel like Gerwig is necessarily the type. (Although Gerwig is an obvious indie darling, she has never been afraid of studio costs; she has spoken in interviews about her interest in working with the studio machine to tell stories, rather than protesting against it, and is currently in pre-production on her Netflix Narnia film.)
Like Gerwig and Baumbach did have an idea for one Barbie2we would normally greet it with at least a little of the skepticism traditionally reserved for knee-jerk sequels. But Gerwig has earned quite a bit of benefit of the doubt in recent years; the movies that led to the billion dollar explosion were virtually all great, and Barbie herself threaded the needle between goofball comedy and social satire well enough that we’re confident she and Baumbach will likely find something to say with a sequel that’s a little more profound than “We’d like another billion dollars, please.” ‘ If they had an idea that they’re happy with, but they want you to know, but that’s not the case.
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