10 Movies That Used Great Songs To Trick You Into Watching Them

7. Mamma Mia!

If Sean Penn split opinion in I Am Sam, then Mamma Mia! cleaved it in two with a cheese knife. Based on the box office-conquering musical and fuelled by the greatest hits of Sweden's premier pop export ABBA, it charmed and repulsed audiences with its frenetic narrative of misunderstandings, weddings, sun-drenched locations and of course unabashed warbling. Let's face it, people didn't flock to the cinema and rake up the DVDs to see Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan - both clearly in the throes of some alarming mid-life crisis - cavorting around, taking a sonic hatchet to the supergroup's source material. The music was both the chief selling point of the movie and the sole purpose for it existing. In that sense it is the ultimate example of producers using song to draw viewers to the product. The downside to such an enterprise is that most of the best tracks are used up over the feature-length running time. If Benny Andersson wanted to turn his hand to Mamma Mia 2!, he'd better start digging around in the ABBA archives, or craft a few extra ballads with his famous bandmates.