The trailer for Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again has dropped, and fans are excited, to put it mildly.
The film reunites a now-pregnant Sophie (Amanda Seyfriend) with the colourful characters from the first film, including her three possible fathers (Colin Firth, Pierce Brosnan and Stellan Skarsgaard) and her mother’s rowdy bandmates (Christine Baranski and Julie Walters).
There’s even a surprise appearance from Cher as Sophie’s chic grandmother, who arrives by helicopter “wearing an all-white pantsuit, stilettos, and evening sunglasses”, says Vanity Fair, which also notes that the iconic singer is only three years older than on-screen daughter Meryl Streep.
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So far so good. But one aspect of the trailer had fans worried.
Much of the film is set in the past, exploring how Sophie’s mother, Donna - played by Lily James in the flashbacks - met the three men who formed the mystery paternity triangle of the first film and dealt with her own, unexpected, pregnancy.
However, in the present-day scenes, Streep was nowhere to be seen - and, in fact, Donna appeared to be referred to in the past tense. The reaction on Twitter to the hint that Streep’s character might have been met her Waterloo was… intense.
Fans will have to wait until 20 July, when the film arrives in cinemas, to find out whether it really is curtains for Donna.
Given that the first movie pillaged Abba’s back catalogue pretty thoroughly, some moviegoers had wondered how the sequel would fill its soundtrack.
The trailer offered few hints, beyond Lily James’ downbeat rendition of the title track. However, a glimpse at the movie’s IMDb listing reveals that Andy Garcia will play a character called Fernando. That’s one number down, then…
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