A few years ago a movie musical called The Greatest Showman was released. The movie was a very very very loose adaptation of the life of P.T. Barnum, founder of the Barnum & Bailey Circus and contained a star-studded cast including Zac Efron, Zendaya, and Hugh Jackman as Barnum.
While The Greatest Showman was supposed to be a biopic on how Barnum created his circus, the movie took a lot of liberties with his life. The characters that Efron and Zendaya played were fictional and created for the movie. A lot of the terrible things that the real Barnum did, like owning slaves, were never mentioned (maybe the filmmakers could not work that part into an upbeat pop song).
Despite getting mixed reviews, The Greatest Showman was a hit with audiences. Even the movie’s soundtrack was really well received and is believed to have sold over a million copies. This is probably why the movie is going to get a sequel. Hugh Jackman just confirmed that The Greatest Showman 2 is already being worked on. Jackman mentioned that he would be reprising his role as Barnum, but was uncertain on whether or not he would be the sequel’s main focus.
It is also unclear what this new movie would even be about. Since the original movie was more about catchy songs than historical accuracy, this sequel could be about pretty much anything the filmmakers want it to be. Who knows: maybe the filmmakers will do a complete 180 and just show all the crazy stuff that the real P.T. Barnum did.