BARBIE Sequel in “Early Stages” as Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach Settle on Story Idea
As
Barbie painted the world pink and covered the box office in a whopping $1.4 billion of green, an urgent question emerged and was lobbed at everyone involved: What about a sequel?
It’s a query that even someone as adorably clueless as Ken could’ve come up with and one that Warner Bros. and Mattel were understandably eager to answer with a resounding, “Yes, please!” as it became the indisputable pop culture phenomenon of 2023. But the answer has always rested with the
Barbie brain trust of Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach even if, at times, a franchise seemed inevitable.
The partners in life and creativity — they co-wrote the script and snagged an Oscar nomination for their collaboration — were clear in pursuing a follow-up if and only if they could find the story to support it. At least that is what director Gerwig repeatedly stated. “My North Star is, what do I deeply love? What do I really care about? What’s the story underneath this story?” Gerwig said as she accepted
Time’s Women of the Year honors in March 2024. “If I find the undertow, then we get it. If I don’t find an undertow, there’s no more.”
The Hollywood Reporter has learned per a well-placed source that Gerwig and Baumbach have been swept up in an undertow and hatched an idea for the sequel, having already brought it to Warner Bros. While it’s said to be in “early stages,” it is understood that finding the story has opened the door for deal talk which, again, is early, another source with direct knowledge confirms.
A rep for the studio and a rep for the filmmakers pushed back. “There is no legitimacy to this reporting,” said Gerwig and Baumbach’s rep, while a Warner Bros. representative added, “
THR’s reporting is inaccurate.”
Should a deal make, the focus would be hammering out a script and lining up schedules in order to do so. Baumbach is hard at work on post-production for his next film, an untitled and star-packed coming-of-age project for Netflix. Expected for next year, the film stars Gerwig, George Clooney, Adam Sandler, Laura Dern, Billy Crudup, Riley Keough, Jim Broadbent, Patrick Wilson and Emily Mortimer (who co-wrote the script). Meanwhile, Gerwig is in pre-production readying her own movie for Netflix, a
Chronicles of Narnia adaptation that producer Amy Pascal recently described as very “rock and roll.”
Per one source, Baumbach would get started on writing the
Barbie sequel, with the two passing it back and forth as they do. They confirmed during a WGA West Q&A moderated by Judd Apatow in October 2023 that their creative process finds them writing separately from one another and sharing drafts along the way. “Then we listen to hear if the other person’s laughing,” Gerwig said at the time.
Per two sources, Oscar-nominated writers Gerwig and Baumbach have an idea for the sequel to the $1.4 billion blockbuster, though reps for Warner Bros. and the filmmakers deny it is in the works.
www.hollywoodreporter.com
