Meryl Streep's Latest Comments on Possibility of Mamma Mia 3 Will Have You Sending an S.O.S.

Mamma Mia, will they ever go again?

While fans are still keeping their fingers crossed for a Mamma Mia 3 one day, Meryl Streep recently weighed in on if she'd consider a third installment in the future.  

"I'm up for anything," the Oscar winner told Vogue in an oral history of the musical published Sept. 12. "I'll have to schedule a knee scoping before we film, but if there's an idea that excites me, I'm totally there."

The 2008 movie Mamma Mia—based on the stage show featuring ABBA songs—follows Streep's Donna, a single mom named Donna running a hotel on a Greek island who suddenly finds herself face to face with three exes (played by Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgård) after her daughter Sophie (portrayed by Amanda Seyfried) invites them to her wedding in hopes of finding out which one is her dad.

As for the 2018 sequel, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again picks up with Sophie preparing to reopen the hotel following her mother's death, while flashing back to share movie how a young Donna (played by Lily James) met each of her three great loves and her beloved island.

And given Donna's passing, Streep isn't sure how producer Judy Craymer would incorporate the character into a storyline if a third film were to be made. However, that's not to say she isn't thinking about how she could return.

"I told Judy if she could figure out a way to reincarnate Donna, I'm into that," she noted to Vogue. "Or it could be like in one of those soap operas where Donna comes back and reveals it was really her twin sister that died."

For now, the actress is continuing to wait and see what the future holds. As she put it, "We may have to call it Grand-Mamma Mia! By the time we make it!"    

However, her castmates weren't afraid to lay all their love on the idea for a third movie.

"I'd be there like a shot for all of the reasons I've given about the joys of making the first two films," Firth told the magazine. "There just has to be a good enough idea to reunite us. It doesn't have to be a good idea in any lofty sense, but it just has to be a good enough script to give us another go."

Referencing the decade between the first and second films, Skarsgård joked that he's game for more—even if the franchise outlives him. "I will be in an urn by the time there's a script for Mamma Mia 3," he quipped, "but I will gladly participate as a pile of ashes." 

Although, ABBA member Björn Ulvaeus did express one concern. "Never say never," he added, "but I just don't think there are enough songs for a third Mamma Mia!"

But director Ol Parker has previously given a reason why fans shouldn't lose hope just yet.

"Judy Craymer, the genius producer behind the musical and the first two films, always plans for it to be a trilogy. That's all I can say," the filmmaker told Screen Rant in December. "The first one made an enormous amount of money, and I think we made a fair amount too. I know that there is a hunger for a third, and I know that she has a plan. Wouldn't it be lovely?"

Brosnan seems to think so, too, expressing hope that he'll reunite with his onscreen love in another installment.

"Come back, Meryl, any time you like," he told E! News in March. "Please! You're always in my heart. That film is in my heart, deep in my heart. I mean, to quote Meryl—she said once—she said, ‘It's criminal how much fun we've had making this movie.' I think everyone would love to come back to make a third and a trifecta. It has such love and joy to it. There's a story there to be told I'm sure. Grandfathers!" 

(E! and Universal Pictures are both part of the NBCUniversal family).