Updated 08/06/2020: Amazon’s A League of Their Own series has officially been given the green light, Deadline reports. The series, which comes from Mozart in the Jungle executive producer Will Graham and Broad City‘s Abbi Jacobson, will be a reimagining of Penny Marshall’s beloved 1992 film. The new show will feature all-new characters who try to carve out their own paths, both on the field and off it. Per the official description, the series will take a “deeper look at race and sexuality” in a way the film couldn’t.
“28 years ago, Penny Marshall told us a story about women playing professional baseball that up until then had been largely overlooked. We grew up obsessed with the film, like everyone else. Three years ago, we approached Sony with the idea of telling a new, still overlooked set of those stories. With the help of an enormously talented team of collaborators, an amazing cast, and the devoted support of Amazon to this project, we feel beyond lucky and excited to get to bring these characters to life,” Graham and Jacobson said in a statement, according to Deadline. “It took grit, fire, authenticity, wild imagination and a crackling sense of humor for these players to achieve their dreams. We’re hoping to bring audiences a story with all of those qualities.”
A League of Their Own will star Chanté Adams, D’Arcy Carden, Gbemisola Ikumelo, Kelly McCormack, Roberta Colindrez, and Priscilla Delgado. Molly Ephraim, Kate Berlant and Melanie Field are set to recur.
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There’s no crying in baseball and there should be no crying today because A League of Their Own is coming to TV!
Actually, the beloved 1992 baseball movie is being adapted into an episodic series for Amazon, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Mozart in the Jungle executive producer Will Graham and Broad City‘s Abbi Jacobson are co-writing the adaptation for the streaming service. Amazon has not officially decided on whether it will pick the show up to pilot or series, but has commissioned a small writers’ room to develop the “modern look” at the League of Their Own Story.
The film starred Tom Hanks as a baseball coach saddled with coaching an all women baseball team for the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. The movie was inspired by the real-life league set up during WWII to help keep American spirits up as the men went overseas to fight the war. Geena Davis played Dottie Hinson, the captain of Hanks’ team, the Rockford Peaches. The film also starred Lori Petty, Madonna and Rosie O’Donnell.
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This is the second time that A League of Their Own has made a move to the small screen. CBS tried to make it work in 1993 but the show only lasted three episodes. The remaining produced episodes burned off in the summer season before the show was completely pulled off the air.
Amazon’s version will take a more modern approach to the story, according to the trade publication. The official logline reads: “A League of Their Own is a half-hour comedy infusing the warmth, humor and DNA of the classic film, while taking a contemporary spin on the stories of the women surrounding the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. The show will begin with the formation of the league in 1943 and follows the Rockford Peaches, season to season as they struggle to keep the team alive through close games, injuries, late night bar crawls, sexual awakenings, not crying and road trips across a rapidly changing United States. The series dives deeper into the issues facing the country while following a ragtag team of women figuring themselves out while fighting to realize their dreams of playing professional baseball.”