Ryan Gosling has claimed ‘Angry Birds’ “destroyed” any chance of a sequel to ‘The Nice Guys’.
The 43-year-old actor starred with Russell Crowe as private detectives in the 2016 black comedy and though it is a fan favourite, the ‘Barbie’ star admitted any hopes of a second film were scotched after it was hammered at the box office by the animated children’s film.
He told ComicBook.com: “So much of a sequel, I think, is decided by the opening weekend of a movie, and we opened up against ‘Angry Birds’. So ‘Angry Birds’ just, just destroyed us. ‘Angry Birds’ got a sequel.”
According to Deadline, ‘The Nice Guys’ took $11.2 million at the box office on opening weekend, a figure dwarfed by the $38 million ‘Angry Birds’ pulled in. The same period also saw ‘Captain America: Civil War’ earn $32.9 million in its third weekend of release, and ‘Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising’ opening with $21.7 million.
Last year, Ryan’s co-star Russell joked about a potential sequel to ‘The Nice Guys’.
Speaking on the KFC Radio podcast, he quipped: “We wanted to call it ‘Nice Guys: The Mexican Detectives’. Bang! It’s me and Ryan, somehow we’ve got to pretend we’re Mexican detectives.”
And director Shane Black previously revealed there were plans to take the characters and put them at the heart of a spin-off TV series, but ultimately the pitch didn’t prove popular and the filmmaker felt that was the right decision.
He told /Film in 2022: “We tried it as a TV show. 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 homogenise … 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.”