While it was definitely flawed, “Mamma Mia!” was a feel-good romp that became a surprise hit back in 2008. Given how it grossed over $600 million, it’s a wonder it’s taken so long for Universal to announce a sequel, but then it also took this long for musicals to become popular again.
So, now, hot on the heels of “La La Land,” “Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again” is on its way for a release date next year. Expect ABBA songs abound, as well as the return of the original cast, which includes some pretty big names like Amanda Seyfried and Meryl Streep, who is “overrated” according to US President Donald Trump but not according to anyone else.
The original Film was based on Catherine Johnson’s hit musical, so who knows what this sequel will be based on? They’ll be pulling the story out of somewhere...
Writer/director set for new movie
“Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again” will be written and directed by Ol Parker, who knows a thing or two about pleasing audiences with sickly schmaltz having written the screenplay for “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.” Bleh. The new film will be released in cinemas on 20 July 2018, just over a year away, which will make its release exactly ten years and two days after its predecessor exploded onto screens. So far, the only competition on the 20 July 2018 slot is “Alita: Battle Angel,” but that’s a big-budget American interpretation of celebrated Japanese sci-fi, so expect it to go the way of Scarlett Johansson’s whitewashed “Ghost in the Shell” bomb.
The soundtrack will consist of ABBA songs that weren’t in the original “Mamma Mia!” although given that everyone’s favourite ABBA songs were in the original, they’ll probably be reincorporating some of old ones, too, just to make former James Bond Pierce Brosnan singing them in his abysmal singing voice worth watching. The new film will again be set on the Greek island of Kalokairi, so expect a “same sh*t, different day” kind of plot that you tend to get with cash-in sequels these days.
Hollywood has been really pushing for musicals recently, a by-product of the back-to-back surprise successes of “La La Land” and “Beauty and the Beast,” with the former dancing its way to Oscar glory and a staggering $400 million box office total and the latter rocketing past $1 billion worldwide despite being full of motion blur and generally just a flawed and lacklustre piece of work.
“Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again” is joining the saturated slate of upcoming musicals that also contains “The Greatest Showman,” “Mary Poppins Returns,” Freddie Mercury biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody,” the new remake of “Oliver!” and Disney’s live-action re-dos of “The Lion King” and “Aladdin.” Expect musicals to get real old real fast (if they haven’t already, that is).
