Ryan Gosling blames ‘Angry Birds’ for killing ‘The Nice Guys’ sequel with Russell Crowe

Ryan Gosling has blamed The Angry Birds Movie for killing The Nice Guys sequel with Russell Crowe.

There were plans for a sequel to the Shane Black-directed 2016 comedy but according to Gosling, the release date of the film clashed with The Nice Guys and resultantly the film didn’t perform well enough at the box office to secure a sequel.

“So much of a sequel, I think, is decided by the opening weekend of a movie, and we opened up against Angry Birds,” Gosling told Comic Book. “So Angry Birds just destroyed us. Angry Birds got a sequel.”

On its opening weekend,The Angry Birds Movie earned $38million (£30million) at the box office compared to The Nice Guys’ earnings of $11.2million (£8.9million). The Angry Birds Movie earned a sequel in 2019.

The Nice Guys saw Gosling and Crowe play two private investigators in 1977 Los Angeles’ who explore the disappearance of a teenage girl.

Back in 2023, Queens Of The Stone Age frontman Josh Homme shared a number of his “go-to” most-watched movies and named The Nice Guys as one of his favourites.

“I love a movie called The Nice Guys,” he said last summer. “Whenever I’m feeling down, I watch this movie The Nice Guys with Ryan Gosling and … Russell Crowe. It’s just so funny and it’s very much Abbott and Costello somehow the way that movie is and the way people speak to each other. The dialogue makes me happy.”

Gosling meanwhile ended weeks of speculation recently by showing up at the Oscars last month and performing a showstopping version of ‘I’m Just Ken’, alongside Mark Ronson and Slash.

He also recently appeared on Saturday Night Live with Oppenheimer star Emily Blunt for a skit about the successes of their films last summer – Barbie and Oppenheimer. 

The pair also performed a duet of Taylor Swift’s ‘All Too Well’ on the show.