Mamma Mia!

Mamma Mia 2: Here We Go Again will be coming to theaters this summer.  The new movie is set to have the entire cast from the first movie return.  Mamma Mia 2 is set to be a prequal that follows a young Donna (Meryl Streep) as she is pregnant with her daughter Sophie (Amanda Seyfried).  This movie looks like it will bring back some of the classic songs from the first movie and hopefully a few different Abba songs to go with it.

Mamma Mia is such a unique musical when you think about the structure.  The songs blend seemlessly together with the plot.  It makes one think how was this movie made?  Was the plot created around the song?  Were all of the songs from the same album?  Did the writers just choose Abba’s greatest hits to add in the movie or did they choose any Abba song that fit in with the plot that was created?

Mamma Mia was created from Abba’s greatest hits.  This means that the plot was written around the songs, because the songs used were already very popular.  The songs that were used in the musical were not from a specific album, instead they were taken from all of Abba’s old albums.  The majority of the songs in the musical were Abba’s greatest hits.  This could have helped the musical to gain popularity because a majority of the audience already knew the words to the songs.

Mamma Mia was originally a musical that came out in 1999.  The writer of Mamma Mia, Catherine Johnson, thought of the idea of a musical from the song “The Winner Takes It All” in 1983.  The musical wasn’t expected to be a success, but it is still running today all over the world.  Mamma Mia has helped Abba stay popular well past when they finished creating music.  Even now, children as young as ten know the words to Mamma Mia and many other songs by Abba.