Folks, it’s true: the 2008 Mamma Mia! movie that starred Meryl Streep and Stellan Skarsgard dancing in sequined bellbottoms is getting a sequel. Not only that, it already has a director and a release date. Not only THAT, according to the press release, some, if not all, of the original cast is expected to return for Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again!

According to Variety, the 2008 movie did so well at the box office that Universal has been bouncing ideas around for a sequel to the hit ABBA musical for quite some time. The original focuses on a daughter who is about to get married in Greece, and who invites three of her mother’s former lovers to the wedding weekend to find out who her father is. Ol Parker (The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel) is writing the script, and former ABBA members Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus are back to serve as executive producers and music consultants. Sources tell Variety that the sequel, or prequel, could focus on Streep, Colin Firth, and Pierce Brosnan’s characters “years before the original takes place.” I sure hope that doesn’t mean we’ll find out who the father is, though. Part of the joy in the musical’s ending is that it doesn’t matter.

Mamma Mia! is something of a critical joke, but it was big at the box office, and a sequel would certainly draw the mom crowd, the musical theater crowd, and the Swedish ’70s rock crowd. The sequel will feature other classic ABBA songs that weren’t in the original musical, and will also reprise a couple of the hits, like the title track.

To be clear, I LOVE this movie. I LOVE Meryl Streep as a bohemian cool mom, I LOVE cougar Christine Baranski, I LOVE Pierce Brosnan’s wheezy “singing.” After my mom and I saw it in the theater we went to the neighboring Barnes & Noble and bought the soundtrack on CD. I still listen to it on road trips. If Streep and the rest of the cast are down for coming back, I will be there at the midnight premiere in my Super Trouper T-shirt.

Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again! hits theaters July 20, 2018.

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