Mama Mia Here She Goes Again

The creator of the original stage musical and producer of both films tells IndieWire how she brought snagged original star Meryl Streep for a rare second human activity.

Before it was a globally successful moving-picture show franchise, "Mamma Mia!" was just one adult female's passion project. British theater impresario Judy Craymer offset imagined "Mamma Mia!" in the '80s, eventually spending years trying to persuade erstwhile ABBA members Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus to allow her make something out of their deep songbook. Her efforts finally yielded the 8th longest-running Broadway show in history, a 2008 picture that over half a billion dollars worldwide, and now a sequel — "Mamma Mia: Here Nosotros Again" — poised to proceed the franchise alive.

"I definitely never had a business organization plan," Craymer said, reflecting on the 20 years of progress. "I've always taken it one day at a fourth dimension." The claiming started anew after the first "Mamma Mia!" movie took off, and talk near turning the film into a franchise kicked up. As early as the autumn of 2008, just months after the outset picture show'south release, Universal co-chairman David Linde was telling printing he wanted to bring the band back together for another installment.

Behind the scenes, however, there was one fundamental problem — star Meryl Streep wasn't interested.

"She's the most lauded actress and the most boggling actress in the world so she doesn't do sequels, so to speak," Craymer said, who is a producer on both films. "I think it was like, what would she exist doing in there? And it had to be something really interesting." (Streep has never played the same function twice, though this twelvemonth she will appear in "Mary Poppins Returns," with a newly created function in the sequel to the classic children's picture show.)

While Streep hasn't given any interviews for "Mamma Mia!: Here We Go Once more" and a request for comment went unanswered, in an on-set featurette, she did admit she "actually never thought that there would be a sequel." Ten years later, here we are.

Craymer credits "Love, Actually" and "Four Weddings and a Funeral" filmmaker Richard Curtis for finally cracking the code. The filmmaker has a story credit on the pic's screenplay, merely he was the one who turned to some other classic sequel to inspire the film's ii-pronged storyline, ane that could freshen up the narrative and keep the original cast in identify. In brusk: flashbacks.

"I looked to Richard Curtis, actually, to throw the puzzle at him of if in that location was going to be some other movie of 'Mamma Mia!,' what could information technology be," she said. "Bearing in heed that a prequel would hateful that we couldn't bring back the original cast."

In the starting time "Mamma Mia!," Streep played Donna, the single mom of daughter Sophie (Amanda Seyfried), who is planning a lavish Greek island wedding that goes off the track when Sophie unearths secrets nigh her parentage.

Judy Craymer, Stellan Skarsgard, Amanda Seyfried, Christine Baranski, Ol Parker, Björn Ulvaeus, Pierce Brosnan, Lily James, and Benny Andersson

IBL/King/Shutterstock

"We wanted to know what happened to Donna, her odyssey, how she got to the island," Craymer said, "merely of course if you were but doing a prequel, what almost our wonderful cast? Richard Curtis was the 1 that said, 'Well, "Godfather II." Nosotros will go back and forth in time.' And I was like, 'Yep!'"

That conclusion immune the filmmakers to reduce Streep'south participation and introduce a younger cast. Simply Streep wasn't the only one keeping her distance. Both original screenwriter Catherine Johnson and director Phyllida Lloyd passed on a second round. Still, Johnson has a story credit on the new installment and, in 2011, Lloyd directed Streep to an Oscar win with "The Fe Lady."

Ultimately, directing duties on "Mamma Mia!: Here We Get Again" cruel to Ol Parker, whose previous credits include "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" and who is a shut friend of Curtis. Just they however weren't certain how to claw Streep back into the projection, which required some corporeality of her participation. "She gave 295% of her energy on the last film and I don't think she wanted to exist running effectually cliff tops singing a bunch of ABBA songs," Craymer said. "I think she probably felt she'd sung the all-time ones already."

Eventually, they locked Streep to appear in the movie, in which she sings two ABBA songs — merely for the most office, Donna is played by a younger counterpart, Lily James. At one point, Streep even thought she might be tapped to play her ain character's female parent, but that office ultimately fell to Cher. "We know at that place's only iv years between them," Craymer said. "And if you were working in a normal world, not in this slightly madcap 'Mamma Mia!' world, at that place would be people who said, 'I'm non playing someone'southward mother or their grandmother.'"

Craymer wasn't totally reticent to consider the possibility that "Mamma Mia!: Here Nosotros Go Again" could work on the stage, where its predecessor began, though she pointed to one obvious issue. "There has to be a lot of cast on stage," she said, noting that the flashbacks doubled the ensemble from viii to 16 characters. "That's the just problem. I recall we might just have to do the prequel and not the back and forth because it would be a lot."

She wouldn't put the kibosh on making a third "Mamma Mia!" moving picture, though she did admit that they'd have to speed up the process and not spend another decade prepping for a return. "I know information technology would accept to be washed much faster," she said, considering otherwise, "we'll be quite onetime."

"Mamma Mia! Here We Go Once again" is in theaters now.

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Source: https://www.indiewire.com/2018/07/mamma-mia-meryl-streep-sequels-creator-judy-craymer-1201985613/

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