Did Meryl Streep Lip Singing in the New Mamma Mia Here We Go Again ?

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

Before information technology was a globally successful film franchise, "Mamma Mia!" was merely one woman'south passion project. British theater impresario Judy Craymer offset imagined "Mamma Mia!" in the '80s, eventually spending years trying to persuade quondam ABBA members Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus to let her make something out of their deep songbook. Her efforts finally yielded the eighth longest-running Broadway show in history, a 2008 movie that over half a billion dollars worldwide, and at present a sequel — "Mamma Mia: Here We Once again" — poised to go along the franchise alive.

"I definitely never had a business program," Craymer said, reflecting on the xx years of progress. "I've always taken it i twenty-four hours at a time." The claiming started afresh after the first "Mamma Mia!" movie took off, and talk almost turning the film into a franchise kicked upward. Equally early on equally the fall of 2008, simply months after the first motion picture's release, Universal co-chairman David Linde was telling press he wanted to bring the band back together for another installment.

Behind the scenes, withal, at that place was one key problem — star Meryl Streep wasn't interested.

"She's the about lauded actress and the almost extraordinary actress in the earth so she doesn't do sequels, then to speak," Craymer said, who is a producer on both films. "I think it was like, what would she be doing in in that location? And information technology had to be something really interesting." (Streep has never played the same role twice, though this year she will appear in "Mary Poppins Returns," with a newly created role in the sequel to the classic children'southward movie.)

While Streep hasn't given any interviews for "Mamma Mia!: Hither We Become Over again" and a request for comment went unanswered, in an on-prepare featurette, she did admit she "really never idea that there would be a sequel." Ten years later, here we are.

Craymer credits "Love, Actually" and "4 Weddings and a Funeral" filmmaker Richard Curtis for finally cracking the lawmaking. The filmmaker has a story credit on the film'due south screenplay, just he was the one who turned to another classic sequel to inspire the motion picture's two-pronged storyline, one that could freshen up the narrative and keep the original bandage in identify. In short: flashbacks.

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

In the first "Mamma Mia!," Streep played Donna, the unmarried mom of daughter Sophie (Amanda Seyfried), who is planning a lavish Greek isle hymeneals that goes off the rails when Sophie unearths secrets virtually her parentage.

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

IBL/REX/Shutterstock

"Nosotros wanted to know what happened to Donna, her odyssey, how she got to the island," Craymer said, "only of course if yous were just doing a prequel, what virtually our wonderful bandage? Richard Curtis was the one that said, 'Well, "Godfather 2." We will get dorsum and forth in fourth dimension.' And I was like, 'Yes!'"

That decision immune the filmmakers to reduce Streep's participation and introduce a younger bandage. But Streep wasn't the just ane keeping her altitude. Both original screenwriter Catherine Johnson and director Phyllida Lloyd passed on a 2d circular. Yet, Johnson has a story credit on the new installment and, in 2011, Lloyd directed Streep to an Oscar win with "The Iron Lady."

Ultimately, directing duties on "Mamma Mia!: Here Nosotros Go Again" fell to Ol Parker, whose previous credits include "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" and who is a close friend of Curtis. Only they yet weren't sure how to hook Streep back into the project, which required some amount of her participation. "She gave 295% of her energy on the last film and I don't recollect she wanted to be running effectually cliff tops singing a bunch of ABBA songs," Craymer said. "I think she probably felt she'd sung the best ones already."

Eventually, they locked Streep to appear in the picture, in which she sings ii ABBA songs — but for the most role, Donna is played by a younger counterpart, Lily James. At one bespeak, Streep even thought she might exist tapped to play her own graphic symbol's mother, but that role ultimately cruel to Cher. "We know there's only four years between them," Craymer said. "And if you were working in a normal globe, non in this slightly madcap 'Mamma Mia!' world, in that location would exist people who said, 'I'1000 not playing someone'southward mother or their grandmother.'"

Craymer wasn't totally reticent to consider the possibility that "Mamma Mia!: Here We Go Again" could work on the stage, where its predecessor began, though she pointed to i obvious consequence. "There has to be a lot of cast on stage," she said, noting that the flashbacks doubled the ensemble from eight to 16 characters. "That'southward the but problem. I call back we might just take to do the prequel and non the back and forth because it would exist a lot."

She wouldn't put the kibosh on making a third "Mamma Mia!" motion picture, though she did acknowledge that they'd have to speed up the process and not spend another decade prepping for a return. "I know it would have to be done much faster," she said, because otherwise, "we'll exist quite onetime."

"Mamma Mia! Hither We Go 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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