‘The Nice Guys’: Ryan Gosling, Russell Crowe Starrer Could Still Get a Sequel!!

Ryan Gosling made headlines in 2023 thanks to his performance as Ken in Barbie, but nearly 10 years ago he showed off his comedy chops in a hilarious buddy cop flick that’s currently streaming on Netflix. Gosling stars alongside Russell Crowe in The Nice Guys, the 2016 bumbling detective thriller that earned scores of 91% from critics and 79% from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes, but grossed only $71 million at the worldwide box office against a $50 million budget, meaning it failed to hit its break-even point and ultimately cost much more than it earned. During a recent interview with Collider‘s own Aidan Kelley at the Saturn Awards, The Nice Guys director Shane Black spoke about the chances of reuniting Gosling and Crowe for a potential sequel to The Nice Guys. While he isn’t jumping to come back, he also wouldn’t rule it out either:

“There is a chance, but it requires a great deal of things to go right at the same time because there are legalities, and there’s also the fact that, honestly, the first movie didn’t make a lot of money. And the next one will probably cost a great deal. So you go ‘Hey, you want to make a sequel to this?’ and they say ‘How much?’ ‘$100 million.’ ‘No.’ But hopefully someday. I think there’s enough generated awareness and enthusiasm.”

There’s a lot to unpack here, but first and foremost, Black is 100% correct that a sequel to The Nice Guys would cost a fortune to make, and with the state of the box office in 2025, where it’s impossible to predict what’s going to hit or miss, it would certainly be an additional risk to mitigate. Gosling and Crowe have both found major box office success in their careers, Crowe with Gladiator in 2000 and Gosling with Barbie in 2023, but the two have also starred in box office misses over the years, such as The Fall Guy and Kraven the Hunter. The Nice Guys has certainly become more popular in the nine years since its release thanks to streaming, but bringing a sequel to theaters that would need to gross north of $150 million to be a profit likely isn’t enticing for any studio.

What Else Is Coming Up for Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe?

Gosling recently completed production on Project Hail Mary, the upcoming space sci-fi epic that is an adaptation of Andy Weir‘s famous novel, and he has also been tapped for a role in Shawn Levy‘s Star Wars movie. As for Crow, he’ll next be seen in Nuremberg, the upcoming historical thriller that also stars Rami Malek and Michael Shannon, and he has also been tapped for a role in Beast in Me, the upcoming sports drama that also stars Luke Hemsworth.