Greta Gerwig's team refused to agree to Barbie 2 before the movie came out – and now it's hit $1 billion

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This Barbie is making astute business decisions

Greta Gerwig on set of Barbie
(Image credit: Warner Bros.)

Barbie has now made $1 billion at the box office – and there's no sequel on the horizon. Neither writer-director Greta Gerwig nor her co-writer (and real-life partner) Noah Baumbach has a contract for Barbie 2, but that doesn't mean the studio hasn't tried to convince Gerwig. 

According to The Hollywood Reporter, though, Warner Bros. tried to get the ball rolling a few months prior to the movie's release – but Gerwig's team turned them down and wanted to wait until the film hit the big screen. 

This was an astute decision on the part of her agents, as Barbie recently crossed the $1 billion mark at the global box office – making Gerwig the first-ever female director to cross that threshold. Barbie is now the second-highest-grossing movie of the year, too, with only The Super Mario Bros. Movie ahead of it. 

The movie stars Margot Robbie as the titular doll (along with an ensemble cast of other, different Barbies, played by Issa Rae, Hari Nef, Alexandra Shipp, Emma Mackey, and more) and Ryan Gosling as Ken. When Barbie starts to experience feelings of existential dread in her otherwise pink and plastic life, she sets out on a mission to the real world to try and return everything to normal – but things don't quite go to plan when the real world starts to infiltrate Barbie Land.

Emily Garbutt
Emily Garbutt
Entertainment Writer

I’m an Entertainment Writer here at GamesRadar+, covering everything film and TV-related. I help bring you all the latest news, features, and reviews, as well as helming our Big Screen Spotlight column. I’ve previously written for publications like HuffPost and i-D after getting my NCTJ Diploma in Multimedia Journalism.