“Barbie” Sequel in Early Stages While Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach Hone Story Idea

Once Barbie became a cultural and box office colossus, cementing writer/director Greta Gerwig and producer/star Margot Robbie as two of the most sought-after talents in Hollywood, the most obvious question glowed in pink and the largest font possible—when would we hear about a sequel in the works?

While we know there will be no Oppenheimer 2 from Christopher Nolan, a Barbie 2 would need no Barbenheimer effect to command the attention of the global movie audience—heck, Barbie didn’t need the father of the atomic bomb the first time around, even if the twin openings was a fun cultural phenomenon that benefited both films. Now, The Hollywood Reporter hears from two reliable sources that a Barbie sequel is, in fact, in the works.

Yet for a sequel to satisfy after the massive success of the original, which boasted a Kentastic script from Gerwig and her partner Noah Baumbach, that duo would need to come up with a storyline that advanced the arcs of Robbie’s Barbie, Ryan Gosling’s Ken, and the rest of the Barbie-verse. As THR has pointed out, Gerwig has said that her “North Star is, what do I deeply love? What do I really care about? What’s the story underneath this story?” At Time‘s Women of the Year honors in March of 2024, she also said: “If I find the undertow, then we get it. I don’t find the undertow, there’s no more.”

THR has learned that Gerwig and Baumbach have located the undertow and are being swept toward an idea for the sequel. Yet the respective reps for the filmmakers and studio aren’t going along. “There is no legitimacy to this reporting,” said Gerwig and Baumbach’s rep. “THR‘s reporting is inaccurate,” a Warner Bros. rep added.

There’s a long, pink road to go before any Barbie sequel is officially in pre-production. Gerwig is prepping her Netflix film, an adaptation of Chronicles of Narnia, while Baumbach has his own major film coming out next year for Netflix, starring Gerwig, Laura Dern, George Clooney, Adam Sandler, Riley Keough, Billy Crudup, Patrick Wilson, Jim Broadbent, and Emily Mortimer, who co-wrote the script.

There’s been no leak on what the Barbie sequel could be about it, as it’s been safely stored in an adorable bank vault in Barbie Land. Gerwig has gone on record about her distaste for sharing script ideas too early, saying on a WGA panel that “I don’t like to talk about things too early or pitch things or show treatments too early because it feels like it’s gonna somehow wreck what the movie is.”

Gerwig also said in an interview with People, “I want to go back to Barbie Land.” Millions of people hope she does and will take us along for the ride.

For more on Barbie, check out these stories:

“Barbie” and Billie Eilish Have a Big Night at the Grammys

Hit Makers Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt on Adding a Pop Punch to “Barbie” Soundtrack

“Barbie” Casting Directors Allison Jones And Lucy Bevan on Populating Barbie Land

Featured image: Caption: (L-r) Director/Writer GRETA GERWIG, MARGOT ROBBIE and RYAN GOSLING on the set of Warner Bros. Pictures’ “BARBIE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Dale Robinette