A sequel to Greta Gerwig’s box office sensation Barbie is reportedly in limbo due to stalled negotiations over its stars’ salaries.

Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling led the 2023 movie as Mattel’s iconic toy dolls Barbie and Ken, respectively.

The Warner Bros. production earned more than $1.4 billion at the box office and garnered eight Oscar nominations.

However, the film studio is in a race against time as the rights to Barbie will revert to Mattel if it does not make a deal with the principal talent for a sequel by December, The New York Times reports.

According to The Times, Warner Bros heads have been negotiating with Robbie, Gosling and Gerwig for months without success.

Two people familiar with the talks told The Times that Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav balked at offers that included a cut of the profits for the film’s stars provided it hit a box office target and a massive upfront payday of $20 million for Gosling.

A Warner Bros. spokeswoman disputed this account, saying talent representatives declined the studio’s latest offer in May and have yet to respond with a counteroffer.

“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,” studio co-chairs Pam Abdy and Michael De Luca said in a statement. “Unfortunately, we have been unable to reach an agreement thus far.”

The Independent has contacted representatives for Robbie, Gosling and Warner Bros for comment.

The first film followed Robbie’s Stereotypical Barbie as she leaves the utopian Barbieland for the real world to fix an existential crisis.

It became one of just 53 movies in box office history to make over $1 billion, not accounting for inflation, and the biggest to be directed by a woman.

Robbie produced the film via her production company, LuckyChap Entertainment, which she founded in 2014 with her now-husband, Tom Ackerley. Their past productions include the 2020 films Birds of Prey and Promising Young Woman.

According to three Variety sources, Robbie earned around $50 million from the first film in salary and box office bonuses.

The film transcended the box office to become a cultural moment, fuelled by its instantly recognisable pink branding, inventive marketing and its unlikely pairing with Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer — a phenomenon that inspired the “Barbenheimer” nickname.