Buzz: Barbie spin-off 'Ken' featuring Ryan Gosling currently in the works

If the latest rumour in Hollywood town is to come true, Warner Bros are looking at turning Barbie into a franchise of its own. The Great Gerwig film will hit the big screens worldwide on July 21, 2023, in a famous box office clash with Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer but even before the rumble begins, we hear that a 'spin-off' seems to be in the works.

According to the World of Reel, which quotes Daniel Richtman as the source of information, a 'Ken' movie is in development with Ryan Gosling slated to lead it. Gosling embodies Elliot Handler's popular fashion doll figure Ken in the very first live-action feature film based on the Barbie figurette. Margot Robbie plays Barbie with America Ferrera, Kate McKinnon, Issa Rae, Rhea Perlman and Will Ferrell, too, part of the cast. Greta Gerwig directs the film based on a script she co-wrote with her partner/fellow filmmaker Noah Baumbach.

But there is no director currently attached to this project, adds the same report, and it isn't clear when the film will potentially will go on floors. What seems increasingly clear, though, is that Barbie is billed to yield great results at the box office with trade analysts reckoning that the film is set to collect $80-100 million in the opening weekend. It has Oppenheimer to tackle, of course, and Tom Cruise's latest expedition as Ethan Hunt, Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One, too, is expected to take wielded all its power over the box office through its head start. 

The Christopher McQuarrie film is the first of the two instalments of the seventh iteration of the Mission Impossible film series and is set to release worldwide on July 12. Hayley Atwell, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Ving Rhames, Esai Morales, Vanessa Kirby and Henry Czerny, too, star in the film.