On Monday 16 July 2018 at London’s Eventim Apollo in Hammersmith, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again received its world premiere. Released to the wider world on 20 July, the movie has already smashed box office records around the globe.

At the after premiere party in London, Björn told icethesite about the reception the premiere crowd had given the movie:

“It was absolutely fantastic. The event was really quite special with all the actors gathered on the stage before the showing. The reaction was something else!”

And how was it that ‘Mamma Mia! 2’ finally came into being?

“Well the story has to serve the songs and the other way around of course. And we waited until we had a script that everyone agreed we could work with. Ol Parker did a brilliant job of weaving the story together and then we could see that there was a second movie in there after all!”

What was it like revisiting decades old songs in order to rewrite lyrics for the movie?

“Movie songs have to serve the story and where it was felt that the originals didn’t quite hit a particular moment on the head, I was more than happy to make a few changes here and there. Where in the ABBA recordings the stories were self contained, with the movie I had to ensure that they fitted the wider story.

“The new lyrics came to me pretty quickly and they felt very organic.

“For My Love, My Life to be set in a church meant that revisiting it in its new setting had religious overtones for me.”

Even though you are an atheist?

“Even though and maybe because of. Religion is a fascinating subject to me.”

Have Agnetha and Frida seen the movie yet?
“Not yet but I am pretty sure they will be very happy, as we are, when they do. It’s a good flick.”

There’s more…