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Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie have proven to be a winning combination, as evidenced by the fact that Barbie will finish 2023 as the highest-grossing film of the year.
They’re both elite dramatic actors, underrated comedic performers, and, obviously, gorgeous.
But while the talents of the A-list duo can usually make up for a lot of shortcomings, bad writing is not one of them. Just ask The Gray Man and Amsterdam, two 2022 films Gosling and Robbie starred in, respectively.
Given the talent involved, it’s still too early to determine which direction the upcoming Ocean’s Eleven prequel that the pair are set to star in will ultimately head in: Barbie territory of The Gray Man/Amsterdam territory. The reported plot of the film, however, doesn’t seem too promising.
According to recent reports, the upcoming film will be titled Oceans and will see Gosling and Robbie star as the parents of George Clooney’s Danny Ocean and Sandra Bullock’s Debbie Ocean (the lead character in Ocean’st 8, the most recent ill-conceived Ocean’s film).
Furthermore, the film will be set in 1962 Monte Carlo and will center around their characters teaching their children how to steal from the rich (actually, that part sounds pretty cool).
Oceans is set to be directed by Jay Roach, who first burst onto the scene with the Austin Powers trilogy but has since pivoted to more serious projects such as Trumbo (2015) and Bombshell (2019).
In fact, in all likelihood, Ocean will be quite good. The annoyance comes from the fact that young versions of Clooney and Bullock’s characters are being shoehorned in, which speaks to the larger issue of Hollywood’s obsession with franchises.
With awards season set to begin in the coming weeks, Robbie and Gosling might start seeing a lot of each other again as the Greta Gerwig-directed film is expected to be nominated in multiple categories at the Oscars, including Best Pictures.