Trivia / Mamma Mia!

• All-Star Cast: The film easily qualifies. The 2017 Hollywood Bowl production, starring Dove Cameron as Sophie, Jennifer Nettles as Donna, among others, also qualifies.
• Awesome, Dear Boy: Pierce Brosnan summed up his reason for doing the film as this: "Meryl Streep is starring." Perfectly understandable. Many people would use the same reason...
• California Doubling: The scene where Sam, leaves his New York office to go to the Greek Island was actually filmed at the Lloyd's Building on Lime Street in the City of London. He dashes down the escalators and through the porte-cochere, where yellow cabs and actors representing New York mounted police were used for authenticity.
• Cash-Cow Franchise: Overall, the Mamma Mia! franchise has made well over $5 billion from the original musical ($4 billion as of 2019), both films (combined, grossing over $1 billion at the box office), DVD, Blu-ray, and soundtrack sales, royalties from licensed stage productions, Mamma Mia! The Party (a dinner theatre attraction running in the UK and Sweden), and new reality series Mamma Mia! I Have a Dream.
• Cast the Runner-Up: Cher turned down the role of Tanya in the film due to concert commitments. She went on to appear in the sequel.
• Creator Backlash:
  • Amanda Seyfried stated she never wanted to hear "Voulez-Vous" again after the "frantic" choreography involved in the scene.
  • Despite being the longest-running Donna of the Broadway production, playing the role from 2004-2011, Carolee Carmello actually hated doing the show. However, she still performs "The Winner Takes It All" at revues to this day.
• Cut Song:
  • The "Under Attack", "One of Us", "Knowing Me, Knowing You" (which was probably for the best considering who would have ended up singing it), and "The Name of the Game" numbers from the musical do not appear in the movie (although "The Name of the Game" sequence is a Deleted Scene). All but the first one would go on to appear in the sequel.
  • "Thank You for the Music" was cut from the film proper and replaced with a reinterpreted version of "Our Last Summer", changed from a duet between Donna and Harry. The song instead appears during the credits sung by Amanda Seyfried with Benny Andersson on piano. This version of the song is a hidden track on the CD version of the soundtrack (following several seconds of silence after "I Have a Dream"), while digital releases have it as its own track.
  • The title song itself is a strange case, because in the stage show, it’s mostly a Donna solo, but with Bill, Harry, and Sam finishing off the last chorus after Donna departs the stage. In the movie, it’s an out and out Donna solo, and the guys don’t sing a word of it, which considering some of their shall we say, limited singing talents on display in the movie, may not have been a bad thing at all.
  • Early previews of the stage show featured "Summer Night City" as an opening number. It was cut when the show officially opened, although it is still used instrumentally as scene change music at one point in Act II, and a sample from the song is used in the Entr'acte. According to director Phyllida Lloyd, the number was cut because it did not help audiences get the gist of the show; an extravagant opening number was deemed unfitting for an intimate story about a mother and daughter, so it was done away with to put more of the opening scene's focus on Sophie.
  • Although not entirely cut, "I Do, I Do, I Do" is reduced to just the first few lines in the film, and does not appear on the soundtrack.
  • The stage show's exit music was originally a lengthy medley, much like the overture. Once "Waterloo" was added to the finale in 2000, the exit music was reduced to just an instrumental of one chorus of "Dancing Queen".
  • Several amateur stage productions opt to omit "Under Attack", either for time constraints, its unfamiliarity (it's arguably the least popular ABBA song in the show, plus it's not in the film), or because it's often considered a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment and difficult to choreograph.
• Dawson Casting: Donna is supposed to be in her early forties, but Streep was nearly sixty when she did the role. In fact, nearly all of the middle-aged adults are played by actors close to retirement age. Colin Firth was 48 at the time of filming, so he averts this trope by being of the right age.
• Edited for Syndication:
  • U.S. television airings of the film typically cut the part where Bill turns around and exposes his bare buttocks, along with Rosie's subsequent line, "I think you just did [serve up the works]."
  • The version that airs on Paramount-owned networks such as VH1 and CMT is severely edited for time. Among the cuts include abruptly going straight to the start of "Money, Money, Money" right after Sophie explains the legend of Aphrodite's fountain, removing much the scene from the morning after the party (going straight from "Voulez Vous" to Donna and Sophie's fight), and cutting the first half of "Waterloo", including Donna's "Do you want another one?!" and Sam, Bill, and Harry's entrance in the jumpsuits (going straight from the end of the "Dancing Queen" reprise to the final chorus of "Waterloo").
• Meaningful Release Date: The original West End production officially opened on April 6, 1999, exactly 25 years after ABBA won the Eurovision Song Contest with "Waterloo", kicking off their career.
• Missing Trailer Scene:
  • One trailer for the film features a clip of Sophie bolting awake in bed, apparently waking up from a nightmare. This implies that the nightmare sequence from the stage musical was originally planned to be retained in the film, albeit without its associated musical number, "Under Attack".
  • Some trailers and the promotional "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!" music video feature scenes of Ali, Lisa, and another girl singing the song's verses while holding beer bottles like microphones. In the final cut, only the song's choruses are heard, as is the case in the original stage musical.
  • Another clip only present in the trailers is Sophie saying, "You tell me." while closing her bedroom door.
• Playing Against Type: Meryl Streep. Yes, the same Streep who starred in Sophie's Choice. Then again, one could argue that she doesn't really have a type at this point.
• Promoted Fanboy: Meryl Streep was a fan of the stage show after seeing it on Broadway in September 2001, when she found the show to be an affirmation of life in the midst of the destruction of 9/11.
• Queer Character, Queer Actor: In the film, Harry's partner Petros is played by Juan Pablo Di Pace, who later came out as gay.
• Referenced by...:
  • An episode of 30 Rock features Jack in a similar predicament to Sophie's. When Liz finds out, she excitedly tells him how this is just like Mamma Mia! and suggests luring all three of his possible fathers in under false pretenses so he can get to know them and figure out which one is his father after meeting them all. Unlike Sophie, Jack successfully identifies his father on his own. When the father figures out what's going on, he says, "Is this ... some Mamma Mia! thing?"
  • Canadian ice dancers Hales Sales & Nikolas Wamsteeker performed to the Mamma Mia! soundtrack for their rhythm dance during the 2019-2020 competitive season.
  • In PreCure in a Nutshell, the Amamiya family get the parody surname of "Mamma Mia" (ex. Elena Amamiya becomes Alane Mamma Mia).
• Romance on the Set: Amanda Seyfried and Dominic Cooper dated for two years, but broke up due to him staying in the UK while she stayed in the United States.
• Screwed by the Lawyers: Although it appears on all cast recordings, "Chiquitita" does not appear on the film's soundtrack, likely due to ABBA's agreement to donate all royalties from the song (which presumably includes cover versions) to UNICEF.
• So My Kids Can Watch: Inverted by Meryl Streep, who joked that she took the role specifically to embarrass her kids.
• Star-Making Role:
  • Between this and Mean Girls, Amanda Seyfried almost immediately became one of Hollywood's most sought-after actresses, as she made an excellent showing in two very different movies, playing two very different roles. It also established her singing talents.
  • This was also one of the first notable roles given to Dominic Cooper.
• Throw It In!:
  • "Waterloo" was originally not part of the stage show at all, because producers could not find a way to fit it into the story. When the show began performances in North America in 2000, it was decided to simply add it to the show's finale, where it has remained ever since. In the first year of the London production, the finale was only the reprises of "Mamma Mia" and "Dancing Queen", followed by much longer exit music.
  • Donna's famous straddle split jump during "Dancing Queen" came about because Meryl Streep decided she wanted to see if she could do it, and it was caught on tape. When she was asked to try it again, she said there was no way she'd ever be able to replicate it.
  • Donna rips Sam's shirt off during the fountain scene because... Meryl felt like ripping Pierce Brosnan's shirt off. That's it. Brosnan's surprise (and enthusiasm) are absolutely real.
  • Apparently, the eye tattoos on Bill's bottom were Stellan Skarsgård's idea, and he didn't tell the director. When they filmed the scene, she howled laughing.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Nicole Kidman, Michelle Pfeiffer and Olivia Newton-John were considered for Donna.
  • Antonio Banderas and Bill Nighy was considered for Harry Bright.
  • Amanda Bynes, Keira Knightley, Rachel McAdams, Mandy Moore and Emmy Rossum were for Sophie.
  • Dawn French was originally cast as Rosie. After the creators described her character as "the fat, funny one," and the musical director was clearly not impressed with her singing, she declined the role. She did play the role in a Children in Need comedy adaptation with her comedy partner Jennifer Saunders as Donna.
• Word of God: Out of the three potential fathers of Sophie, Bill is confirmed to be her biological one.
• Working Title: Summer Night City (of course, named after another ABBA song).

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