The director of Bend It Like Beckham has said that, two decades after the film first hit screens, a sequel is in the works.
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The 2002 film, starring Keira Knightley and Parminder Nagra, told the story of a Punjabi British teenage girl who defies her parents’ wishes to play football and is widely credited with inspiring a generation of young women to take up the sport.
Speaking in Basel yesterday, on the eve of England’s Euro 2025 final against Spain today (July 27), director Gurinder Chadha (Bride and Prejudice, Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging) revealed a follow‑up is in development with a release earmarked for 2027.
It’ll mark both the film’s 25th anniversary and the FIFA Women’s World Cup in Brazil, although whether it’ll be a film or a television series is as yet unknown.
Chadha told The Guardian she has been inundated with requests for a sequel almost weekly since its release, but has been waiting until the right story came to her.
“After 23 years and being unable to come up with a storyline that was as good as the original, I have finally found a fantastic story for a Bend It Like Beckham follow-up,” she told the publication.
“Women’s football is more competitive, more exciting and more global than ever. It is an honour for me to be a small part of it.”
She shared hopes of reuniting leads Nagra and Knightley, along with the rest of the original cast, and suggested members of England’s Lionesses would be “queuing up” for cameos in the follow-up.
Chadha has also enlisted US women’s national team manager Emma Hayes as a collaborator on the new script, with the Olympic gold medallist saying it felt “like the stars aligned” for them to meet. “I told her the massive impact the film had had on me when I was younger,” she explained, adding that she cried in the cinema watching the film, “because I felt just like Jess and Jules”.
A sequel to ‘BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM’ is in the works. pic.twitter.com/IltVCiDe4u
— cinesthetic. (@TheCinesthetic) July 26, 2025
“I’m super excited to have connected with Emma who, when I first met her, said: ‘On my god, I was Keira Knightley, that was me!’,” added Chadha. “I know all the amazing work that she is doing both in front and behind the scenes for women’s football, so have brought her on board as a collaborator as I write the script which I’m working on right now.”
Released in 2002 on a budget of £3.5 million, Bend It Like Beckham went on to gross almost £60 million worldwide, and became the only film distributed in every country in the world, including North Korea.
Lisa Nandy MP, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, described the announcement as a “brilliant moment for British film”.
“Bend It Like Beckham captured something so special about Britain, our spirit, our diversity, and our ability to dream big in the face of challenge,” she said. “Gurinder Chadha gave us a story that resonated far beyond the screen and became part of our cultural DNA.”
