Barbie’s expiration date is looming.
It has been three years since the bright-pink sensation hit the box office and racked up $1.5 billion in worldwide box office sales — the most ever for a Warner Bros. film — and commanded the culture, with all-pink screening parties and eight Oscar nominations. The reception left Warner Bros. with a clear commercial mandate: Get a sequel into production as soon as possible.
But no deal has been reached, and time is running out. Rights to “Barbie” will revert to Mattel, the toy company behind the iconic doll, if Warner Bros. does not make a deal with the principal talent for a sequel by December.
This has led to lots of scrambling.
The studio’s deal for the sequel gives Mattel a percentage of the film’s gross profits, according to three people with knowledge of the negotiations, similar to its arrangement on the first movie. But Warner Bros. still needs to reach agreements with the talent involved in the first film, including the writer and director Greta Gerwig and the stars Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling.
The studio chiefs have been negotiating with the talent for months. The offers have included a cut of profit for the principal talent if the film reaches a certain level of box office success, and at least some upfront raises, including paying Mr. Gosling $20 million (his current asking price), two people with knowledge of the talks said. But David Zaslav, the Warner Bros. Discovery chief executive, deemed the offers, including when participation in profits would kick in, too generous and would not sign off, the people said.
A spokeswoman for Warner Bros. put the onus on the talent representatives, saying they declined the last offer, made in May, and have not yet countered with a new one. She disputed that Mr. Zaslav had balked at terms agreed to by his executives.
The studio co-chairs, Pam Abdy and Michael De Luca, said in a statement: “We have a rights deal with Mattel in place and have made a series of big offers to try and finalize deals to make the next ‘Barbie’ film. Unfortunately, we have been unable to reach an agreement thus far.”
The negotiations come at a crucial moment for Warner Bros. The pending merger between Warner Bros. Discovery, the studio’s parent company, and Paramount was just put on hold after state attorneys general sued to block the deal. The studio needs to keep operating independently in the interim, and “Barbie” is a big part of its franchise strategy.
Warner’s recent performance at the box office has been underwhelming. After a huge 2025, it has had a rough run lately, with “Supergirl” and “The Bride” not recouping their production and marketing costs.
Mattel declined to comment on the negotiations. In the past few years, under its chief executive, Ynon Kreiz, the company has become much more savvy and aggressive when it comes to Hollywood dealmaking. Mr. Kreiz has previously said he wants to avoid these sorts of delays.
“We expect projects to move and be in active development,” he said in an interview in May regarding his strategy. “We don’t want to sit on the back burner.”
Should Mattel walk away from Warner Bros., the toymaker would have to develop “Barbie” from scratch. The company would not be allowed to take story elements or the talent to another studio.
The negotiations over the sequel are happening because Ms. Gerwig and her lead actors did not want language in their contracts about a sequel when they signed on to make the first “Barbie,” three people with knowledge of the talks said. Studios often push hard to include contract terms about sequels in original deals, but the studio wanted Ms. Gerwig to write and direct the movie, so Warner Bros. made a calculated risk and proceeded without a promised sequel.
If a deal is made, it will still take years for the movie to hit theaters.
Yet, according to the people, Ms. Gerwig, who is finishing up “Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew” for Netflix, and her writing partner and husband, Noah Baumbach, have made it clear in negotiations that they have a story they want to tell and are ready to begin writing. This, too, is being used as a point of leverage. Warner Bros. doesn’t know what the idea is, and the pair won’t tell the studio, or begin writing, until the deal is done, the people said.
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