‘Barbie’ is Streaming on Netflix, Continuing Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig’s Success

While any movie landing on Netflix is guaranteed to get a little attention, The Hollywood Reporter‘s recent article suggesting that Greta Gerwig and co-writer Noah Baumbach have “hatched an idea” for a sequel could also have spurred more subscribers to check out or revisit the original.

Being that the first film garnered a record-breaking $1.4 billion worldwide, rumors of a sequel from Warner Bros. would be unsurprising. However, authorities on the subject have denied the validity of the rumors. A representative for Gerwig and Baumbach said, “There is no legitimacy to this reporting.” And Warner Bros. called the information “inaccurate.”

Throughout the fanfare of Barbie‘s press tour, Gerwig said that she would consider a sequel only if she and Baumbach found fertile ground for future storytelling. “My North Star is, what do I deeply love?” she said while Accepting Time‘s Women of the Year award in March. “What do I really care about? What’s the story underneath this story? If I find the undertow, then we get it. If I don’t find an undertow, there’s no more.”

Women in the Director’s Seat

While there has been no further word about Gerwig’s position on directing a Barbie sequel, her attention is currently focusing on a live-action Chronicles of Narnia movie for Netflix. In the meantime, she has continued to use her platform to rally studios to get behind women directors. In speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, director Jane Campion (The Power of the Dog, Bright Star & The Piano) applauded Gerwig for her industry-shaking success and its implications for women in the field.

“[Gerwig] doing the Barbie story … fantastic. Because for once, we’ve got a film that is not Marvel hero characters, but a sort of humorous and very creative and funny take on the Barbie mental story. She’s the first woman that has really made the historical bundle out of it, she got into the billions. It’s fantastic. It just means that women [will] be trusted with money, finally.”

Related

Hi, Barbie! 2023 Was the Worst Year for Women in Film Since 2007!

Despite the blockbuster success of Barbie, 2023 was a horrible year for women in movies.

Statistics on women represented in the director’s seat have seen abysmal improvements over the last couple of decades, not even reaching growth of 10 percentage points, according to the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative’s Stacy L. Smith, who spoke with The Hollywood Reporter. Of the top 100 films of 2023, Annenberg calculated that women directed 12.1 percent. And the statistics are even more bleak for women of color. Over 17 years, only 19 women of color directed a top 100 movie. “For the companies and industry members who want to believe that the director problem is fixed, it is nowhere near solved,” Smith said.

Martha Lauzen, an academic from San Diego State University, told The Hollywood Reporter that women directors are more likely to expand opportunities to other women — a philosophy that Gerwig evidently has adopted in her own hiring practices given her prior track record. “Generally speaking, when a woman directs a film, she brings a substantially different network of creatives with her than a male director would, intentionally or unintentionally,” she said.

Only time will tell if Gerwig really does have more up her sleeve for the Barbie franchise.

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/5

Barbie

Release Date

July 21, 2023

Runtime

114 Minutes

Cast

Margot Robbie
, Ryan Gosling
, Simu Liu
, Ariana Greenblatt
, Helen Mirren
, Nicola Coughlan
, John Cena
, Will Ferrell
, Ritu Arya
, Michael Cera
, America Ferrera
, Alexandra Shipp
, Kate McKinnon