Ryan Gosling Thinks The Angry Birds Movie Stopped A Nice Guys Sequel From Happening

Although Ryan Gosling didn’t come home with Oscar gold this year, the actor is on the promotional trail for The Fall Guy, opening in theaters this weekend. While there’s still no greenlight for a Barbie sequel–or if one will ever even happen–one sequel fans have been clamoring for has been for The Nice Guys, the 2016 black comedy starring him and Russell Crowe as private eyes in the late 1970s.

While speaking to ComicBook about The Fall Guy, Gosling argued that a sequel to The Nice Guys might not happen, especially after The Angry Birds Movie dominated the box office weekend.

“So much of a sequel, I think, is decided by the opening weekend of a movie, and we opened up against Angry Birds,” Gosling explained. “So Angry Birds just…just destroyed us. Angry Birds got a sequel.” The Nice Guys eventually earned just $62 million off of a $50 million budget. The Angry Birds Movie by comparison would go on to earn over $350 million.

Since the initial release, director Shane Black revealed that had plans to spin off the general concept into a television show, but that it didn’t translate well in that format.

“We tried it as a TV show,” Black shared with Slash Film back in 2022. “We caught the characters, but the plot was totally different. It was set in present day, and no one wanted to buy it. We had to look elsewhere. [It] wouldn’t have been any good [as a TV series]. Tonally, TV tends to homogenize…so if you’ve got something that’s a little odd or twisted, chances are the [network executives are] going to take it and just start…[sanding] off the edges.”