Amanda Seyfried: Fate of ‘Mamma Mia 3’ Will ‘Come Down to Something Stupid’ Like ‘Whether Universal Wants to Pay’ for It

Samantha Bergeson
·3 min read
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For Amanda Seyfried, “Mamma Mia 3” just might come down to how much Universal is willing to pay to reunite their Dancing Queens.

During a recent oral history of the 2008 film for Vogue, Seyfried confirmed that a third “Mamma Mia!” is the goal for the cast and crew, but no one can work “for free.”

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“I dare you to show me one person who doesn’t want a third ‘Mamma Mia!,'” Seyfried said. “Nobody is saying no, but nobody is saying yes either. The powers that be probably can’t afford us, to be honest.”

The “Mean Girls” alum continued, “I hate to say it, because would I do ‘Mamma Mia 3’ for free — of course I would — but that’s not the business we’re in. What’s fair is fair, and I feel like a third film is going to come down to something stupid like whether or not Universal wants to pay the money.”

Universal executive Donna Langley said in the same article that “Universal would love to make a third movie, and I’ll leave it at that.”

“Mamma Mia!” spurred sequel “Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again,” which brought on Lily James and Cher to the ensemble cast. James played a younger version of Streep’s Donna, while Cher played Donna’s mother (and Seyfried’s onscreen grandmother).

Seyfried’s “Mamma Mia!” co-stars Colin Firth, Pierce Brosnan, Stellan Skarsgård, Dominic Cooper, and Meryl Streep all echoed their dedication to seeing a trilogy — even after Streep’s matriarch character Donna died in the 2018 sequel “Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again.”

“I’m up for anything,” Streep said. “I’ll have to schedule a knee scoping before we film, but if there’s an idea that excites me, I’m totally there. I told [creator] Judy [Craymer] if she could figure out a way to reincarnate Donna, I’m into that. Or it could be like in one of those soap operas where Donna comes back and reveals it was really her twin sister that died…We may have to call it ‘Grand-Mamma Mia!’ by the time we make it!”

Brosnan added, “[Creator] Judy Craymer knows where to find me if they want to have a third go around. I think everybody would feel the same way if she said, ‘I have a story, I have the script.’ We’d all do it in a heartbeat.”

Cooper weighed in, joking that he has been asking Craymer for years about a third film. “I text Judy every other day, ‘Number three when?’ I know we’re all dying to do it,” Cooper said, “and Meryl was definitely bummed about not being in much of the second one. She understood that was where the story goes, but I remember her saying, ‘Well, I didn’t want to be dead.’”

And Skarsgård is willing to continue the ABBA-centric franchise even from beyond the grave, if needed: “I doubt any of us would shy away from doing another one,” he said. “It’s just a matter of finding enough songs to come up with a new story. I will be in an urn by the time there’s a script for ‘Mamma Mia 3,’ but I will gladly participate as a pile of ashes.”

Firth confirmed that the cast reuniting would be based on a “good enough” plotline to cap off the beloved “Mamma Mia!” story.

“I’d be there like a shot for all of the reasons I’ve given about the joys of making the first two films. There just has to be a good enough idea to reunite us,” Firth said. “It doesn’t have to be a good idea in any lofty sense, but it just has to be a good enough script to give us another go.”

Earlier this year, Firth called the success of the first film a “miracle” and that he would continue making the films into a fourth or fifth installments if the franchise warranted it.

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