While the much of the blogosphere is abuzz with the rumor that George Lucas is contemplating three new “Star Wars” films (for realz), news of a “Mamma Mia!” sequel is raising pulses in a different quadrant of the Internet galaxy.
Reports of a follow up to the smash 2008 film, which starred Meryl Streep, Colin Firth, Pierce Brosnan, Stellan Skarsgård, Julie Walters, Christine Baranski and Amanda Seyfried, first surfaced late last year.
Streep, who was doing publicity for the film “Doubt,” was asked last December by Film.com about rumors that Universal was interested in a sequel and replied, “Now! Now! Now! As long as they shoot it in the Pelion, then I'm right there.”
More recently, both Seyfried and Firth have given interviews confirming that there is indeed interest in a second movie, with Seyfried telling BBC Radio One’s “Newsbeat,” “I will do it. And I know Meryl’s game as well, so bring it on. It will be so cool.”
The 23-year-old actress also told “Newsbeat,” “I know it’s still going to be Abba music, because what else would it be? Come on, I wouldn’t do ‘Mamma Mia 2’ without Benny and Bjorn.”
Um, Mandy, I’ve got some bad news for you. If there is a “Mamma Mia 2” you and the rest of the cast won’t be warbling Abba tunes. And that comes straight from the horse’s mouth.
In an interview published in mid-September in U.K. newspaper The Telegraph, the band’s Benny Andersson firmly nixed Abba’s involvement.
“No, it’s not going to happen,” the man who co-wrote “Dancing Queen,” “Gimme, Gimme, Gimme,” and “The Winner Takes It All” told the paper. “There will not be another, quote unquote, Abba musical.”
Andersson did, however, acknowledge the creative forces behind the original movie are interested in taking it further and left the door open for another iconic pop band to step in with its music.
“Catherine Johnson [‘Mamma Mia!’ screenwriter] is keen on working on something that has to do with her characters in the ‘Mamma Mia!’ movie – but it will not be with Abba music.”
Okay, I’ll bite. How exactly do you make a sequel to a movie based on the music of Abba – featuring characters and a plot created to fit the lyrics – without including any Abba songs?
Is that the sound of a train wreck I hear in the distance?
How about you readers? Ideas? Better yet, are there any bands out there up for plugging your catalog into a jukebox musical?