The Barden Bellas are back in Pitch Perfect 2, the follow-up to 2012’s smash hit. The comedy is helmed by Elizabeth Banks, co-star and producer of Pitch Perfect, and produced by Paul Brooks, Max Handelman and Banks. Writer Kay Cannon returns to the team to pen the next chapter.
Pitch Perfect and Pitch Perfect 2 could have taken a very different approach to showing us the competitive world of collegiate a cappella — they could have mocked this subculture for the sometimes odd sounds and intense dedication, making them forever the stuff of parody and ridicule.
Instead, the first movie, based on Mickey Rapkin’s nonfiction book, was so loving in its humor and impressive in its music, that it turned a cappella into a pop culture phenomenon. It’s no surprise then, that Amanda Newman, the executive director of Varsity Vocals, which puts on the real-life International Competition of Collegiate A Cappella, was eager to talk about all the things that both movies get right.
