Ken you hear that? That’s the sound of a potential Barbie sequel starring the toy, the myth, the legend, Ken. In a 60 Minutes interview, Greta Gerwig has been playing coy about a potential Barbie sequel focused on Ryan Gosling‘s horse-loving, guitar-strumming doll.
When 60 Minutes journalist Sharyn Alfonsi asked her if there were any plans for a sequel where Ken takes center stage, Gerwig stayed tight-lipped but hinted at the possibility. “I mean, the truth is, you know…I guess we’ll see,” she said. Earlier in the interview, Gerwig said that writing Ken’s character was a joyous process and that she and co-writer Noah Baumbach had to leave a lot of Ken on the cutting room floor. “We had way too much material for Ken,” she said. “We would write, and write, and write.”
Gerwig wrote Ken with Gosling—who has since received a Gotham nomination, a Grammy nomination, and is a strong contender for an Oscar nomination as well—in mind. “We wrote his name into the script and everything… and [Gosling’s name] was everywhere,” she previously told the New York Times. “And then when we handed them the script, the studio was like ‘Oh, it’s so wonderful that you know Ryan.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t know Ryan. I’ve never met Ryan, I have no idea.’”
While some people seem not so hot on a movie starring everyone’s favorite toxically-masculine himbo, if anyone is up to the task of crafting the film, it’s Gerwig. So, what might a Ken sequel even look like? Well, the first film Barbie had Ken discover the patriarchy as Margot Robbie‘s Barbie suffered an existential crisis, so maybe it’s time for the tables to turn. Cut to Ken mid-mid-life crisis, driving in a convertible he can’t afford down Barbie Lane past a new, hotter, more “beach”-able Ken, played, of course, by Jacob Elordi. Then again, that may be a little too similar to Ken’s rivalry with Simu Liu in the first film. What about Ken as a father, then? Does Ken have the Kenergy it takes to be a stay-at-home dad while Barbie is off doing one of her many millions of high-powered jobs—or, better yet, as a single father? Daddy Ken reporting for duty.
Given the fact that Barbie made well over a billion dollars at the box office, it’s no surprise there’s talk of a sequel starring Gosling’s beloved Ken. But if for some reason Gerwig can’t crack a compelling Ken, she can always ditch the idea and make the sequel everyone can get behind: Midge.
