At the time of this writing, there have been no public announcements of a Barbie sequel – nor even any promising rumors – yet that seems to be what many viewers are hoping for. Barbie premiered on Friday and it has become an instant sensation. The fact that it is based on a beloved toy makes it easy to imagine an ongoing franchise about this world of sentient dolls.
First and foremost, there is only one notable comment from someone involved in the making of Barbie on the possibility of a sequel, and that’s director Greta Gerwig. When reporters from Entertainment Tonight asked Gerwig if she would make a sequel, she said: “Honestly, I’m just focused on getting this one out and crossing all my fingers and toes. And then we’ll see what happens after that.” Of course, it doesn’t help that the Writers Guild of America has been on strike since may and the Screen Actors Guild joined them on strike about a week before Barbie‘s release. The cast is now prohibited from promoting the movie under the producers’ alliance agrees to a new deal.
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Still, fans have pointed out that the cast all seemed to get along well during their press tour – which was exceptionally prominent during the promotion of this movie. In particular, Ryan Gosling seemed to express a lot of passion for this role and what it represents. It seems hard to imagine the cast would refuse to return, but even if they did the nature of the movie means that anyone could be recast.
Meanwhile, the company that holds the rights to Barbie is the toy manufacturer Mattel, and the signs from their side of the fence seem extremely promising. According to a report by Forbes, Mattel has 45 movies in development based on their toy properties right now. Most of these have not been announced publicly, so while we can’t confirm that any of them are a Barbie movie, we can’t disprove it either.
Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz did seem positive about a potential Barbie sequel in an interview with TIME. She said: “It could go a million different directions from this point. But I think you fall into a bit of a trap if you try and set up a first movie whilst also planning for sequels.”
If the possibility of a sequel depends on the performance of Barbie, then chances are good. Barbie had a stellar opening weekend at the box office, even achieving the highest opening weekend sales ever for a movie based on a toy – defeating the previous record holder, Transformers. It seems safe to say that Barbie has a good shot at a second outing.
