‘Barbie’: Oliver Stone Apologizes For Saying Ryan Gosling Did “That Sh*t For Money” & Admits To “Speaking Ignorantly”

There are a million sayings that go something like this—don’t talk about shit that you know nothing about. The same can be said in terms of film critique. Don’t speak ill of a movie, or presume you know something about a film, before you spend the time to watch it. This is something Oliver Stone is learning right now, as he is forced to speak up about comments he made about “Barbie” and Ryan Gosling. Lord knows, you don’t speak ill of Ryan Gosling. 

READ MORE: Oliver Stone Calls ‘John Wick 4’ “Disgusting Beyond Belief” & Compares It To A Video Game

For those who don’t remember, way back in July 2023, Oliver Stone was doing an interview with City AM about a documentary he was promoting. And since this was right in the middle of the Barbenheimer craze, he was asked about “Barbie.” That led Stone, who is known to be a bit grumpy about franchise movies and big-budget blockbusters, to got on a bit of a tirade.

“Ryan Gosling is wasting his time if he’s doing that shit for money,” said Stone at the time. “He should be doing more serious films. He shouldn’t be a part of this infantilization of Hollywood. Now it’s all fantasy, fantasy, fantasy, including all the war pictures: fantasy, fantasy.”

READ MORE: Michael Mann Says He Likes The ‘Guardians Of The Galaxy’ Series But Otherwise Not Interested In Superhero Films

Luckily for Stone, those comments didn’t make headlines at the time. What made more headlines were comments he said about how he hated “John Wick.” But that’s neither here nor there. But wouldn’t you know it? Deadline recently put a spotlight on those comments, even though he made them months ago, and Stone found himself in hot water. (To be fair, the Deadline piece does say the comments are from “2023” but doesn’t give complete context that they are from before Stone saw “Barbie.”)

So, with these comments recirculating and “Barbie” getting a ton of Oscar nominations today, Stone had to go to social media to clarify his thoughts. That is to say, Stone basically admitted he was wrong and that he shouldn’t have said anything before seeing the film for himself.

“At the time, I was busy promoting my nuclear documentary in Europe and had little to no knowledge of [‘Barbie’] beyond its title,” wrote Stone. “I was able to see Barbie in a theater back in July and appreciated the film for its originality and its themes. I found the filmmakers’ approach certainly different than what I expected. I apologize for speaking ignorantly.”

You have to hand it to Stone for admitting his own ignorance. We’ve seen quite a few filmmakers from his generation speak ill about the current state of the film industry, taking jabs at Marvel and franchises in general. And while you can’t really fault them for being grumpy, it is nice to see some of them actually admit when something they would typically trash turns out to be good. Michael Mann recently did this when talking about Marvel films (apparently, he really liked “Guardians of the Galaxy”). 

I guess we can all put away our pitchforks and wait for Stone to say something else that will rile up a fandom. He’s not someone who holds back, so it’ll likely happen at some point. 

My statement on #Barbie — @DEADLINE #GretaGerwig #BarbieMovie pic.twitter.com/ek0vquIu2f

— Oliver Stone (@TheOliverStone) January 23, 2024