This has been a dynamite year for Glen Powell. Between Anyone But You crushing at the box office following its release towards the end of December 2022 (and that included an extended version being released on Valentine’s Day), Hit Man becoming one of the best movies on Netflix, and Twisters’ arrival on the 2024 release schedule, the man’s profile has gotten a major boost, and that’s after he’d already had an eventful 2022 with Top Gun: Maverick and Devotion. In fact, one Hollywood producer has gone so far as to say that more people like Powell than fellow Hollywood heartthrob Ryan Gosling, though Powell fired back at that claim with an A+ comment.
In an article from The Wrap about Glen Powell’s upcoming turn in the remake of Stephen King’s The Running Man, this unnamed producer described Powell as an “up-and-coming movie star in the sense that audiences now go to movies to see him,” and added that unlike “an actor like Ryan Gosling whose appeal is mostly limited to female audiences, Glen appeals to both females and males.” Powell responded to that claim on X (formerly known as Twitter) with this:
Gosling is a legend. I’m just Glen.
See what he did there? One of the standout moments in last year’s Barbie was when Ryan Gosling’s Ken, a.k.a. Beach Ken, belted out the song “I’m Just Ken,” which was written by Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt. It was such a hit both in the movie and in the real world that it scored an Academy Award for Best Original Song nomination, and Gosling even performed it the tune at this year’s Oscars (though it came “dangerously close to being disastrous”). Glen Powell amusingly twisted that title for his own purposes, making it clear he thinks highly of Gosling… though I think we can all agree that he’s more than just Glen these days.
We don’t need to get into a debate over whether Ryan Gosling or Glen Powell has more appeal in Hollywood, but it’s nice that the the latter went to bat for the former, and with a Barbie pun to boot. It’s support like that which could perhaps lead to these two teaming up one day. Come on, pairing Powell and Gosling together for a comedy or action movie would be a slam dunk of a theatrical event. Yes, I do mean let this play on the silver screen rather than send it directly to streaming.
Needless to say if a movie starring both Glen Powell and Ryan Gosling is announced one day, we’ll let you know about it. In the meantime, along with the aforementioned The Running Man, Powell’s other upcoming projects include Huntington and the TV series Chad Powers, which will be streamable with a Hulu subscription. Gosling will next be seen in Project Hail Mary, which opens on March 20, 2026.
