It was no mystery that Barbie did phenomenally in its box office opening, and everyone is already wondering if there’s a sequel in the works. As it turns out, director Greta Gerwig still doesn’t have her sites set that far.
Talking to The New York Times (via THR), Gerwig was asked if the film was a start of a franchise, to which she replied, “At this moment, it’s all I’ve got.” Gerwig continues, “I feel like that at the end of every movie, like I’ll never have another idea and everything I’ve ever wanted to do, I did… I wouldn’t want to squash anybody else’s dream, but for me, at this moment, I’m at totally zero.”
Though Gerwig doesn’t have any current plans for a follow-up, the movie does leave a lot of doors open for Barbie’s story (specifically Margot Robbie’s Barbie) to continue. We also shouldn’t forget that even the Kens also had their own arc, and fans would definitely want to see where that goes.
With the movie being such a huge success, it would be a no-brainer that the film would get a sequel greenlit (or rather, “pinklit”), but it does feel like a lot of the themes and story points could get lost should anyone add any more to its continuity. Though a lot of audiences were in on Barbie being a pop-culture icon that’s also a toy, cinephiles were also excited about Gerwig using such a monolith of a figure to make a commentary on feminism and womanhood in general.
Maybe the movie releasing against Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer also had to do with its success, but I like to think both films lifted each other up.
Catch Barbie now showing in cinemas.
