Margot Robbie on if Barbie will get a sequel: ‘we put everything into this one’


As you all know, Barbie was the *It* movie of the summer, and probably of the year. In addition to becoming the highest domestic grossing Warner Bros film of all time, it made more than $1 billion at the worldwide box office. This propelled director Greta Gerwig to become the highest grossing female director of all time and made star Margot Robbie $50 million on the backend. It also brought people back to the movies who hadn’t gone to a theater in years.

As is the case with the blend of wildly popular movies, capitalism, and the Franchise Era we’re living in, there’s been speculation about whether or not Barbie will get a sequel. When asked about plans for one at Variety’s annual Women of Power event, Robbie spit some truths and reminded everyone that original, standalone movies are awesome too.

Following the box office success of Barbie, there’s been a lot of chatter about a potential sequel that would see Margot Robbie reprise the titular character role. However, in a new interview, Robbie seems to shoot down any possibilities of a follow-up to the Greta Gerwig-directed film.

“I think we put everything into this one. We didn’t build it to be a trilogy or something,” Robbie told the Associated Press in an interview. “Greta put everything into this movie, so I can’t imagine what would be next.”

Barbie made over $1.4 billion at the box office and Robbie also reflected on the success of the film noting that “original films can still hit huge.”

“It doesn’t have to be a sequel or a prequel or a remake,” Robbie continued. “It can be totally original. It can still be big given the big budget to do that. And just because there’s a female lead doesn’t mean it’s not going to hit all four quadrants which is, you know, I think a misconception that a lot of people still have.”

Robbie says that it was important for Barbie to do well so future filmmakers could “have big original ideas and be given the budget to execute them properly.”.

[From Deadline]

This is so refreshing to hear. Back in July, Gerwig also said something similar about giving the movie all she’s got. I totally agree with Margot here. Some films (and books and mini-series *cough cough Big Little Lies cough cough*) are best left as a “one and done.” Don’t get me wrong – I’ve been a sucker for sequels, trilogies, spinoffs, works of theatre “based upon,” and so on, but there’s something really special about artists who create something and stand firm in their convictions that they told the full story that they wanted to tell and there’s nothing more to say. Almost nothing is going to be The Godfather Part II or The Empire Strikes Back. 90% of the time, a sequel – especially one created as a result of a hit movie and not conceived as a multi-part story – is not going to capture the same magic. I’m sure Greta, Margot, and company could do a great job on a second Barbie movie, but I love that they’re confident enough to say, “We know everyone loved our movie, now give other filmmakers with original ideas a chance to shine.”

Photos credit: Cover Images, Xavier Collin / Image Press Agency / Avalon and via Instagram

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18 Responses to “Margot Robbie on if Barbie will get a sequel: ‘we put everything into this one’”

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  1. Lala11_7 says:

    I am IMPRESSED that the Creators SEEM to acknowledge that a BIG FACTOR in the movie’s success has to ALSO do with the CONTEXT of where SOCIETY is at this moment…and you CANNOT replicate THAT! Also movies like this are an INCREDIBLE drain & the Creators want to grow other gardens…AND I 💞 that❣️

    • aftershocks says:

      ^^ I agree. Quite often, one and done is sufficient. The filmmakers and actors did their job, said what they had to say, and wisely want viewers to continue reflecting upon the value and greatness of their original effort. I love Greta’s and Margot’s creative confidence and their generosity of spirit. Enough money was made on Barbie. Now, they prefer to ‘spread the wealth,’ that was generated by their enterprising effort, and move on to other creative projects. This makes so much sense, and it’s courageous to resist the tempting greed of going back to the same well. What they achieved with Barbie can standalone.

      This reminds me of how the first Twilight film, directed by Catherine Hardwicke, was an unexpected sleeper hit. While there was enough material for at least a trilogy, the studio honchos made the mistake of ditching Ms. Hardwicke for ‘big-boy’ special-effects-minded directors, to go forward with a greedy four sequels. What a huge mistake. Hardwicke’s original vision was lost, and the already less-than-stellar source material ended up as mediocre shlock in the ham-handed hands of the ‘big guys.’ 😕

      Kudos to Gerwig and Robbie! 👏🏽 Now, will there be an original concept floated by the ‘big guys,’ for a G-I Joe franchise? 😧🫣

  2. D says:

    Oh, I’m sure Warner Bros. and Mattel will make more Barbie movies, just not with this cast and production team. They will hire a male director and writer, it will be terrible and they will blame women when it doesn’t make nearly as much money. They always hire men to direct second and third movies in franchises that had huge first movies directed by women and those movies are always terrible.

    • aftershocks says:

      ^^ LOL! My thoughts exactly. As I mentioned above, but it didn’t get posted prior to your comments, the glaring example of Twilight proves our similar observations. 💯

    • Normades says:

      Totally. The film execs never learn their lesson. We are going to be bombarded by toy movies whereas the real lesson here is that smart female driven stories are a huge draw. But of course if a movie fronted by females doesn’t work it’s because women movies don’t do well at the box office (eye roll).

  3. Kittenmom says:

    I see a Ken spinoff happening possibly.

    • aftershocks says:

      ^^ 🤯😲😦😩🫣 You are probably right. But who is Ken without Barbie? LOL! And Barbie is one and done.

    • Normades says:

      I doubt Gosling would do it and it’ll be hard finding a replacement that can pull it off like he did.

  4. Lucy2 says:

    Good, I agree with her. Let it just be this huge perfect success and don’t mess with it.
    Now to hope that Warner Bros. actually listens to the two women who made them $1.4 billion.

  5. Duch says:

    What are the four quadrants that Robbie referenced?

    • mia girl says:

      The film quadrants represent all moviegoers at a high level. They are made by crossing under 25 / over 25 with male / female.

    • aftershocks says:

      I looked it up:

      In the movie industry, the ‘four quadrants’ refers to the four major demographics of the movie-going audience, Male-Female-Adult-Children. Or, it is expressed as: “Both male and female appeal; both over and under 25 years of age appeal.”

      I learned something new, so thanks for asking what ‘four quadrants’ means. 👍🏽

      Oops, @Mia Girl beat me to the response.

  6. Concern Fae says:

    I think the current superhero box office malaise can be chalked up to people being sick of seeing movies which are basically advertisements for some future movie or TV show. It’s no accident that the huge hits of the summer were defiantly stand alone films. Come to think of it Mission Impossible was probably hurt by being Part 1. I know my attitude now is often I’ll catch up on the early ones before watching the last in a series. The studios are forgetting that people are remembering Game of Thrones. An ending like that hurts all multi year sagas.

    My worry is that the awards cycle is going to forget how amazingly good Barbie is.

    • North of Boston says:

      I think the other issue is that many (all?) of the most recent superhero movies have not been very good. Whether it was rushed CGI, lame churned out scripts, bad or non-existent character development, whatever made the previous efforts entertaining, interesting was tossed out the window.

      For example I’d seen every Marvel MCU film through Endgameand enjoyed just about all of them (aside from Dark Thor (TH made that one watchable) and whatever Iron Man it was that was so clunky) but almost every one I’ve seen since Endgame has been ‘a bit not good’
      (The Spider-Man’s and Shang-Chi were enjoyable)

      I skipped BW because I was put off by how that character ended up in Infinity War saga, and haven’t seen The Marvels yet, but the others I’ve seen weren’t charming and seemed heavy on forced plot elements or odd use of existing characters. For example, Dr Strange and Wanda were 2 of the characters I was interested in after EG and I loved WandaVision. … was looking forward to where those 2 characters would go. But DS2 basically wasted those characters, where they were when we last saw them and ALL this potential that was organically there, plus the Illuminati including Patrick Stewart, Haley Atwell etc … in service of whatever visual or plot thing Marvel and the director wanted to play around with. Any project that gets Cumberbatch (who is usually close to Hiddleston levels of ‘game for anything, can make even dopey stuff work and super eager to please’ on projects) coming across as just going through the motions on screen and in promo really has lost the plot.

      The tv series I’ve seen have ranged from pretty good to entertaining to really thoughtful. But the movies? I don’t know what they are thinking, actually they don’t seem to be thinking, instead just churning out something for the sake of churning out something or letting someone (SR, TW, JG others) barrel off wherever they like without consideration of plot, narrative progression or character and wasting what could be good elements in service of … money grabs that aren’t even bothering.

      I’m so glad the Barbie team isn’t going that way.

      • Vera says:

        I agree with you . I waited for most on streaming now. But I went to see the Marvels in the cinema to support female leads and it was funny and really enjoyable. The cats scene is hilarious and worth the ticket just for that alone. And it’s short, well below 2 hours. My ageing bladder was thankful.

  7. Flamingo says:

    I so respect Margot having this as a standalone movie. I can’t even imagine the money Studios would be willing to throw at her to do a sequel. I felt the same way over Bridesmaids. People thought Kristen Wiig was insane not to do a sequel. But she wanted the movie to stand on its own.

  8. CatMum says:

    I love this. make space for other stories instead of the constant rehashing!