Barbie 2 A Priority For Skydance, Is It A Bad Idea? : WG Highlight

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

Speaking of sequels, and speaking of ideas from the merger, this is another one, we got this, then we've been watching, then we're done. Barbie 2, Dylan, I know you were a massive fan of the first Barbie.

Dylan (0:09)

Loved it. Huge fan.

SPEAKER_1 (0:10)

You're ready for number two. So what happened was, I guess I'll give you a little breakdown of this. So the past year, when Warner Brothers was by itself, David Zasloff and company kept going to Greta, Ryan Gosling, no bomb back, that's Greta's husband and co-writer, and Margot Robbie, of course, obviously need Barbie, right? And they kept going to them being like, hey, we want to do Barbie too, let's get this done. And they're like, great, here's our price tag. And they kind of kept going back and forth, apparently, and they just could never agree on a pricing. It sounds like Margot and company really want a big high dollar amount. I can't remember what it was described. It was like someone said like an astronomical amount she was asking for. Because obviously billion dollar movie, huge thing, and you kind of, as we just mentioned that you would need, just like Lord of the Rings, you need these characters back.

So the wrinkle that came into this was in December, the rights that Warner Brothers purchased for Barbie expire. So Mattel would have their, it's up to them if they could go shopping around now. They can say, okay, we're going to get out of here, we're going to see you. And apparently, it was a big standstill and they were trying to negotiate. It was still not going anywhere. And the idea is, hey, you got to get to December either. You can say, hey, we're not doing Barbie 2 And that maybe goes elsewhere or like, let's do this.

Obviously, I think it echoes a lot of the Joker situation, where very different movie. First one makes a billion. All the stars director wanting way more money, but then you don't know if it's going to be a hit. I personally think Barbie 2 has a much better shot of being hit than Joker 2, but I digress. But now Warner Brothers Paramount merged. Apparently, they're trying to make this a, trying to fast, not fast track. This is not completed, but they have the...

Dylan (1:45)

Before December, they got to make this thing happen.

SPEAKER_1 (1:46)

Well, yeah. Apparently, it's just the people at Skydance, they have every intention of making this work. So I imagine it's going to go through, but I just want to ask you, because I don't think you'll be there, but where do you see a Barbie 2 now in 2028, 30?

Dylan (2:02)

Let me ask you this. If we hit December or whatever that date is, and then tell them to pull it away from this, and then they can shop it around, does that impact the Margot Robbie and Greta aspect of it all? Can they still get those people with a new studio? It's a weird area, right?

SPEAKER_1 (2:19)

I think technically, what you'd have to do is, you can make a Barbie movie, but you'd have to, you couldn't, I don't think you could make the same, like you couldn't have direct continuation plotline. So you'd almost have to make a Barbie 2 and ignore some stuff, or just kind of pretend like Barbie's on a new, because I don't even know, could Barbie be, because obviously the first one ends with her in the real world, could she be in the real world down Barbie 2? Or would they say, no, no, no, that's tied to our movie, right? So I'll say that I don't know if they could. I think technically they could make a movie with Ryan, Greta and Margot, but they'd have to be very careful. It's kind of like back in the day, I can't remember who made it, but Dylan, there's a James Bond with Sean Connery that's not a technically licensed Bond movie. It's called Never Say Never Again, but they found one book that wasn't bought because Bond was a book series. So they did that where Connery was playing Bond in like a semi unsanctioned Bond movie. So there is, I think, ways, if they could do that, there's ways around it here with Barbie, so you could just call it Barbie Dream House and Margo's in it, and then no one knows any different.

Dylan (3:26)

And maybe I'm crazy here. I feel like, I think all you need, need, need, need, is Margo. Like I think you could put-

SPEAKER_1 (3:35)

Not even Ryan.

Dylan (3:37)

I think you could get away without Ryan.