Barbie 2 Paused: Gerwig, Robbie and the Failed Deals Blocking a Sequel

“Do you guys ever think about dying?” Margot Robbie asks at the start of 2023’s “Barbie.” It’s one of many moments of existential dread that her character faces on the journey to becoming a real woman.

Cut to three years later, and Hollywood insiders have spent the past week asking, “Do you guys think ‘Barbie’ is dead?” Robbie’s version may well be. The proposition has spun some of the most famous and powerful people in show business — Greta Gerwig, Robbie, David Zaslav, Bryan Lourd, Ryan Gosling, Noah Baumbach and Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy — into a pink world of chaos.

Jaws dropped throughout the industry after The New York Times reported recently that a follow-up to “Barbie” — the highest-grossing movie in Warner Bros. history — was in peril, thanks to stalled deal talks. In what could be his final months running Warner Bros. Discovery, Zaslav has dug in and taken a stand against the team’s massive (but justifiable, per many sources) pay demands. It’s a showdown more dramatic than a “beach-off ” between Ken, Ken, Ken and Ken.

The creative team in discussions is led by co-writer and helmer Gerwig, who became the most successful woman director ever after the first film grossed more than $1.4 billion at the global box office. It also includes co-screenwriter Baumbach, male lead Gosling and Robbie as producer and star. The studio has made more than six offers in the past three years, all of which have been rejected.

The most recent, which came late this spring, is said by a studio source to be the highest Warner Bros. has ever offered for a filmmaking team and its stars (“life-changing money,” one source said). Another deal source disputed this benchmark, saying the price of the “package,” the cost of all four, may be historic but individual compensation is not. CAA, which represents all four creatives in a process led by agency bigwig Lourd, has not countered the latest offer….