Manta, Manta: Legacy

Manta, Manta: Legacy (original title: "Manta, Manta - Zwoter Teil") is a 2023 German action comedy film directed by Til Schweiger, who starred in the original movie. The film is a sequel to the 1991 film Manta, Manta. Til Schweiger, Tina Ruland, Michael Kessler and Martin Armknecht reprise their roles from the original movie. Also starring are Tim Oliver Schultz and Luna Schweiger, Til Schweiger's daughter. It was released in Germany on 30 March 2023.

Plot

30 years have passed since the first movie. Bertie (Til Schweiger) and Uschi (Tina Ruland) now have two children, son Daniel (Tim Oliver Schultz) and daughter Mücke (Luna Schweiger). However, they are separated: Uschi, now the owner of her own beauty salon, and Daniel live with her newly-rich partner Gunnar (Moritz Bleibtreu) in his villa; while Bertie, whose racing career ended some time ago, lives and works with Mücke in his highly-indebted garage "Berties Boxenstopp" with an attached go-kart track.

After Gunnar cuts off spoiled Daniel's money and throws him out of his villa, he is forced to crash with his father and sister. Bertie has fallen behind with the repayment of a loan and his garage is threatened with foreclosure. To raise money, he plans to enter the Classics race at Bilster Berg, where the prize is a Porsche 964 worth 150,000 euros. He originally plans to enter the race with an Opel Calibra from his garage, but Daniel wrecks it in a game of chicken. Uschi then surprises him by bringing his old Manta, which he thought was scrapped, out of a garage.

Production

Rumors about a sequel first surfaced around 2008. In 2010, it was officially mentioned for the first time that work was being done on it, with 11 November 2010 mentioned as the release date in various movie databases. However, the producer Bernd Eichinger died in January 2011 and the Manta, Manta 2 project was also frozen. In July 2015, it was speculated that the sequel Manta, Manta 2 would be released in cinemas to mark the 25th anniversary of the original movie, but this was ultimately not the case, while the leading actors of the first movie showed great interest in a sequel.

In an interview in 2018, actor Til Schweiger once again hinted at an interest in a sequel that would show what had become of the characters decades later. However, the film rights for a sequel were held by Constantin Film and Schweiger was under contract with Warner Brothers, thus Constantin would have to develop the screenplay on its own initiative, and his proposal to buy the film rights from Constantin Film were rejected. In 2019, Constantin Film announced that they had been "working on a concept and script for a second part for some time". On May 23, 2022, Manta, Manta 2 was officially confirmed and filming began in June 2022. On January 9, 2023, Constantin Film and Til Schweiger released a teaser for the new film. The film was released in cinemas on March 30, 2023.

After the film was released, Der Spiegel reported on allegations that Schweiger had appeared on set several times drunk. In one case, this had also led to fisticuffs. Schweiger and the Constantin Film initially denied the allegations. However, Martin Moszkowicz, managing director of Constantin Film, admitted his own mistakes shortly afterwards and confirmed that the decision was made to continue filming after the incident, as the financial damage would otherwise have been too great for everyone involved.

The film reached the top of German cinema charts with 370,000 admissions in its first weekend, making it the best opening result of a German film in 2023 to date. In its 3rd week in cinemas, the film passed the 1 million viewer mark, making it more successful than the original Manta, Manta film.