Gurinder Chadha’s film Bend it like Beckham made stars of Keira Knightly and Parminder Nagra. The sports comedy co-starred Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Anupam Kher, Juliet Stevenson, Shaznay Lewis and Archie Panjabi. The film followed Jesminder and Jules as they chased their dreams of becoming professional soccer players inspired by David Beckham despite their parents’ wishes. David and Victoria Beckham also made a cameo appearance in the film which performed brilliantly at the box office making over $76m worldwide. Well now there is news of a Bend it like Beckham sequel
But recently Chadha told UK press that, ‘“I never really wanted to make a sequel to the film, because I just thought the way Parminder and Keira played it, and Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Archie Panjabi, I could never really follow that up and create that same magic in the same way. But with the recent success of football, I just feel like I’m starting to percolate an idea for a possible sequel of some kind.”
The first film had been a difficult on to find finance to make it saying, ‘ I had been struggling to make this film because I really believed the world was changing at this point and I believed that my cultural paradigm was relevant and I was fresh and new to British film makers,” she said. “I’d written a script with my husband Paul [Mayeda Berges] and it was very international…and a very human story and I just didn’t understand why the gatekeepers were passing on it.” So she spoke to incoming CEO of the UK Film Council John Woodward and said, “I’m furious because when you guys all want me to do panels about how hard it is to make films, particularly if you’re a person of color, you wheel me on to all of these platforms to talk about it and but now you’re not backing me – you have to back me.”
With subsequent successful films it looks like she wont have too much of a problem financing a Bend it like Beckham sequel
related feature: Gurinder Chadha’s ‘Blinded by the Light’ review
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