More than twenty years after the release of Bend It Like Beckham, a sequel is in the works for this classic film about women’s soccer. Director Gurinder Chadha was quoted in Deadline this week as saying: “I’m excited to revisit the original characters and revive the enduring story and build on the legacy we helped to create for the women’s game.”
The 2002 original starred Parminder Nagra, Keira Knightley, Archie Panjabi, and Juliet Stevenson in a tribute to women’s athletic prowess. Chadha hopes some of the original cast will be returning in the planned sequel but acknowledges that they will want to see a script before making a commitment. Still, Chadha beliieves she is “pretty certain that everyone’s going to want to come back.”
“I am working really hard to make sure every character I bring back has a decent arc and scenes,” the director added.
Chadha told reporters that for the past 23 years she didn’t want to do anything because she didn’t have a story. “And then I came up with a great story, really super-cool story,” she added. “So now I’m inspired. Literally came up with it just about a month ago. It’s my very clear wish to bring the characters back very, very soon. Women’s football is more competitive, more exciting, and more global than ever. It is an honor for me to be a small part of it.”
Chadha hopes to release the sequel in 2027 to mark the 25th anniversary of the debut of Bend It Like Beckham in the UK. The Kenyan-British director based the original 2002 movie on a screenplay she’d co-written with Guljit Bindra and her husband Paul Mayeda Berges. Then, at this years Cannes Film Festival, Chadha was introduced to Emma Hayes, the new head coach of the U.S. women’s soccer team, and the two have been working “collaboratively” on the sequel. Hayes was quoted as saying that Bend It Like Beckham had a “massive impact” on her life.
“I was Keira Knightley in Bend it,” Hayes said. “I cried in the cinema watching the film because I felt just like Jess and Jules,” the characters played by Nagra and Knightlley. ”There was no hope for women’s football in Britain then so I was going to the States to try my luck. Twenty three years ago I could never have dreamed of how much that film changed the women’s game,” she added.
Lisa Nandy MP, Britain’s Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, was quoted as saying that the sequel would be “a brilliant moment for British film. It builds on a legacy that continues to inspire and shows the world what British storytelling can do. Films like this help tell our national story, remind us who we are, and who we can be.”
Chadha’s latest film Christmas Karma starring Eva Longoria, Kunal Nayyar, Hugh Bonneville Charithra Chandran and Danny Dyer, will be released by True Brit Entertainment in the UK and Ireland on November 14.
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