Three years after ‘Barbie’ took the box office by storm in the summer of 2023, fans are still nowhere closer to a sequel happening, and new details have emerged about the hold-up.

Margot Robbie starred as the title character with Ryan Gosling portraying Ken in the blockbuster, which took in $636.2 million domestic and $810.9 million from foreign markets for a combined $1.447 billion worldwide.

While that is certainly a big enough haul to have most studios quickly giving a green light for a sequel, Warner Bros. has been stalling, with a report from The New York Times revealing why.

Embattled Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav — who is set to earn a whopping $886 million “golden parachute” when (or if) the Paramount/Warner Bros. merger is approved — is balking at Robbie and Gosling’s hefty salary demands.

Gosling is reportedly asking $20 million to return as Ken, though Zaslav thought it was too much and refused to sign off on the deal, which also included language about profit participation.

The studio also needs to come to agreements with Robbie, director Greta Gerwig and her writing partner (and real-life husband) Noah Baumbach.

The report adds that negotiations have been ongoing for months, though studio reps have said that the principal talent declined the studio’s last offer in May and have yet to counter.

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

The negotiations not only come as Paramount agreed to pause their merger with Warner Bros. following a lawsuit filed by California Attorney General Rob Bonta, but also as another deadline looms large.

If the studio doesn’t finalize a deal for the sequel by December, then the film rights would revert back to Barbie toy manufacturer Mattel.

If that happens, that means they would have to re-develop the intellectual property, and they would have to start from scratch with a new cast and creative team, without using any elements from the blockbuster.

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Gerwig — who is currently in post-production on Netflix’s Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew — and Baumbach are said to be using this deadline as leverage.

The writers have an idea for the sequel, though they are refusing to tell the studio anything about their new story, or start the writing process, until their deals are signed.

Both Gerwig and Baumbach are said to have insisted on having no language regarding a sequel in their original Barbie contracts, which has ultimately lead to these negotiations dragging out.

There is still time for a deal to be made, to ensure that this cast and crew can come together for a sequel, but there is no doubt that the clock is ticking and time is running shorter by the day.