There are few (if any) movies released in the last few years that have made me laugh quite as hard as Barb and Star Go To Vista Del Mar. Ranking fifth on my personal Top 10 of 2021, it is a comedy that puts zero limitations on extreme silliness, and it works for multiple viewings because there are a lot of jokes one can miss while stuck in a fit of hysterics. I feel as though I can speak for a lot of fans in wishing that we will someday get a sequel featuring the main characters (the opportunities for a new rhyming title are boundless, but the chances for it feel slim, and star Jamie Dornan's past comments about the potential project succinctly explain why.
While Dornan is best known to audiences for playing the serious, domineering Christian Grey in the Fifty Shades trilogy, he shows a completely different side of himself in Barb And Star Go To Vista Del Mar playing Edgar Pagét – the passion-filled henchman for supervillainess Sharon Fisherman who ultimately becomes a hero thanks to the influence of the titular characters. He is hilarious in the role, and he has previously revealed in an interview with Collider that he has reached out to brilliant co-writers Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo about a potential follow-up, but he isn't particularly optimistic that we'll ever get to see a sequel. He told the site in spring 2024,
If you’re up for it, if you wouldn’t mind starting like a petition online and gather some heat, gather some names. I have had a couple of conversations with Kristen [Wiig] and Annie [Mumolo] about like, doing more, you know, slightly unfortunate, like COVID-y timing with the release of that. And I do think it’s found a really lovely audience who really genuinely love it.
As Jamie Dornan references, the release that Barb And Star Go To Vista Del Mar got in 2021 was not what was planned for the film when it was first developing. Lionsgate produced the comedy with the expectation of giving it a theatrical release in the summer of 2020... but then the world shut down as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Like many other notable titles during that time, the movie was delayed but never got a wide release on the big screen, as distribution instead pivoted to premium video-on-demand.
Jamie Dornan laments the fact that Barb And Star Go To Vista Del Mara never got the exposure that it deserved, and he feels that if it hadn't been for the pandemic, the tone of conversation surrounding a potential sequel would be wholly different. He continued,
But because of the way it came out and the timing of it and not getting a cinematic release because of the cinemas being closed — it was just tough. I feel like more people should know it and if more people had seen it in the right way at the time, then these would probably be easier conversations to be having about doing more because you could do endless.
Given the way the world works and media is discovered these, it's not impossible that Barb And Star could someday get a proper discovery a la the passion for Suits that erupted with the show streaming on Netflix, and such an event could reignite discussions of a sequel. For now, however, we'll just have to revel in the magic that is the singular movie and do their part of share it with others who will love it (and on that note, I'll point out that it's currently available to stream with a Hulu subscription).
