‘Mamma Mia!’ Sequel Director Ol Parker Teases Future for Film Franchise

It sounds like Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again director Ol Parker might be ready to take a chance on pursuing another film in the musical franchise.

Parker, who helmed Universal Pictures’ 2018 follow-up to director Phyllida Lloyd’s 2008 hit Mamma Mia!, told Screen Rant in an interview published online Saturday (Dec. 17) that producer Judy Craymer has always intended to make a film trilogy. Craymer has credits on both films and also the ABBA-centric jukebox musical of the same name, which was the basis for the first movie and has had runs on the West End and Broadway.

“Judy Craymer, the genius producer behind the musical and the first two films, always plans for it to be a trilogy,” Parker teased. “That’s all I can say. The first one made an enormous amount of money, and I think we made a fair amount too.”

The Ticket to Paradise filmmaker continued, “I know that there is a hunger for a third, and I know that she has a plan. Wouldn’t it be lovely?”

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again brought back such castmembers from the first film as Meryl Streep, Amanda Seyfried, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgård, Dominic Cooper and Christine Baranski, along with adding new players including Lily James and Cher.

In her review for The Hollywood Reporter, film critic Leslie Felperin noted that the sequel’s selection of ABBA tunes was less notable than that of the first: “Indeed, the movie’s biggest failing is that so much of its soundtrack, the very engine that propels it, is made up of far too many actual B-sides, or at least lesser-known tunes from the back catalogue of Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus, the two Swedish singer-songwriters who made up half of the 1970s pop quartet ABBA.”

Here We Go Again collected $395 million worldwide, which was well below the 2008 film’s $609 million global take.

This article originally appeared on The Hollywood Reporter.