A sequel is formally within the works for Bend It Like Beckham, the British cult sports activities hit starring Parminder Nagra and Keira Knightley. The unique film, which debuted within the UK in 2002 and within the US in 2003, adopted Nagra’s Jess and Knightley’s Jules as they performed for a small novice ladies’s workforce in London and pursued their dream of a soccer profession within the States.
Now, 23 years later, director and author Gurinder Chadha has confirmed to Deadline that she’s engaged on a sequel. The BAFTA-nominated filmmaker has teamed up with the present head coach of the US ladies’s nationwide soccer workforce and her husband and co-writer, Paul Mayeda Berges, to develop the idea and script.
Chadha advised Deadline that she’d lastly give you an thought for the sequel “final month,” 23 years after the film’s unique premiere.
“I didn’t wish to do something as a result of I didn’t have a narrative. After which I got here up with an important story, actually super-cool story. So now I’m impressed. Actually got here up with it nearly a month in the past. It’s my very clear want to deliver the characters again very, very quickly. Ladies’s soccer is extra aggressive, extra thrilling, and extra international than ever. It’s an honor for me to be a small a part of it.”
Chadha additionally revealed that the movie’s stars, together with Naga, Knightley, Archie Panjabi, who performed Jess’s sister Pinky, and Juliet Stevenson, who performed Jules’s mom, Paula, have all been knowledgeable of the sequel’s improvement, as produce other former forged members. Whether or not they’ll signal on is determined by the script, Chadha mentioned.
“Every part hinges on the script and if the unique forged likes it. I’m working actually exhausting to ensure each character I deliver again has a good arc and scenes.”
This Is The Good Time For A Bend It Like Beckham Sequel
Ladies’s Soccer Is Extra Well-liked Than Ever
As Chadha advised Deadline, ladies’s skilled soccer has turn into a worldwide phenomenon, with nationwide leagues, the UEFA Ladies’s Euros, the South American Copa América Femenina, and the FIFA Ladies’s World Cup receiving extra funding, publicity, and viewership than ever earlier than. Within the UK, for example, ITV earned its largest scores evening of the 12 months earlier this week with the Euros’ semi-final match between England and Italy (by way of RadioTimes.com)
There’s nonetheless an extended strategy to go earlier than ladies’s soccer reaches the monetary heights of the boys’s recreation, however the leap from 2002 has been astonishing. That success has bled into popular culture. Now, even Apple TV+’s large streaming hit Ted Lasso will function Jason Sudeikis’ return to AFC Richmond to educate its newly shaped second-division ladies’s workforce in season 4.
Our Take On Bend It Like Beckham 2
What Occurred After Jess And Jules Went To America?
Given the break between installments, there’s loads Bend It Like Beckham 2 might do with its story. How did Jules and Jess fare in America after they obtained their soccer scholarships? Did Jess ever find yourself enjoying for England, like her hero David Beckham? Did she and Joe (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) work out long-distance? Did Jules keep in America to play for a league membership?
With ladies’s soccer’s boosted recognition, it’s going to be attention-grabbing to showcase how they match into this new world. If Nagra and Knightley reprise their roles, and if their characters loved semi-professional or skilled careers, they will doubtless have retired by now. It might be nice to see them return to their roots and coach different younger hopeful women, coaching the subsequent technology of gamers.
Hopefully, the whole lot clicks for Bend It Like Beckham’s sequel, and Chadha can obtain her aim of getting the film into cinemas in 2027, 25 years after the unique’s premiere and the identical 12 months as the subsequent FIFA Ladies’s World Cup in Brazil.
Supply: Deadline