Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie are taking their onscreen romance up a notch. The pair are going from playing Barbie and Ken in the upcoming Barbie movie to the notorious thieves in an upcoming heist film.
Gosling and Robbie are set to star in a prequel for Ocean’s 11, with reports suggesting that the movie will start filming soon. According to Productions List, the upcoming prequel going into production beginning on June 30, 2023.
In an interview with The Associated Press, the movie’s director Jay Roach shares some details about the upcoming movie. According to the director, the film will be set in the 1960s with the Monaco Grand Prix being the backdrop.
"The Monaco Grand Prix is the backdrop and there’s a big famous shipping magnate who has a yacht," Roach shared. "It’s not inexpensive. And I wanted it to be old-fashioned. Margot brought it to me as a kind of old-fashioned epic love story slash adventure disguised as a heist."
"It is a heist movie still, but it’s very much a love story. And we were both inspired by Hitchcock. To Catch a Thief but also Notorious. It just wants to be a big, big, you know, cinematic spectacle. We didn’t quite sync up yet on what the right budget for it is," he continues.
The director also explains his choice of casting Barbie co-stars Robbie and Gosling in the upcoming movie - Roach said that there are some pairings audiences want to see again and again, alluding to the praise garnered by the duo's latest outing.
"Originally there were some questions about whether it would be weird to have (Margo Robbie and Ryan Gosling) together again after Barbie," Roach said. "But I think there’s just some pairings you want to see over and over again. It’s such a powerful, powerful duo, you know?"
He adds, "And it’s the suspense of will they come together; will they trust each other enough to team up? That’s romantic. That’s why Notorious is one of the most romantic movies I’ve ever seen, because they don’t trust each other, and they need to trust each other. That’s the heart of what I want to do."
The Steven Soderbergh-directed Ocean’s trilogy didn’t exactly have romance as a central theme. George Clooney’s Danny Ocean and Julia Robert’s Tess, as a married couple, did have some chemistry in the films. The onscreen chemistry between Gosling and Robbie should be a welcome twist for fans of the series.
There have been questions from fans about the continuity of the film franchise. As the movie is set in the 1960s, the upcoming movie will serve as a direct prequel to the Ocean’s trilogy and the spinoff. However, it is unclear how the prequel ties into the plot of the other films.
No firm release date for the Ocean’s 11 prequel has been announced.
