A League Of Their Own Series: How It Will Differ From Movie

With all due respect to the 1992 Penny Marshall-directed “A League Of Their Own” film, and with a whole lot of reference to some things in the 1992 film, Abbi Jacobson and Will Graham have come together to make a Prime Video series about the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Of course, they knew they couldn’t recreate the magic of the 1992 film, they didn’t bother trying to. Instead, they crafted their own version that introduces new stories, while still referencing Marshall’s work.

This July marks the 30th anniversary of the film “A League Of Their Own,” which became a cinematic classic that reintroduced and, in some cases, merely introduced American audiences to one of the most distinctive periods in U.S. sports history.

“I think it’s as original as we could make it being based on that real league,” Jacobson told The Hollywood Reporter during the show’s Tribeca Film Festival premiere. “Penny Marshall watched a documentary about the All-American Girls League, and then the movie came out of her viewing that and being, ‘Oh, I want to make a film about this.’ We saw the doc and then saw the movie and were like, ‘We’re gonna make our own thing about that.’”

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“A League Of Their Own” Series — Difference In Coach Characters

“A League Of Their Own” Series will have Nick Offerman starting as coach Casey “Dove” Porter however, his character won’t that of Tom Hanks’ Jimmy Dugan. That’s because Jacobson and Graham wanted their take on the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League to revolve around the players.

“In some places where you go to watch the film, the description is that it’s about a washed-up player who goes to coach a women’s league, and it’s like, ‘That’s what this film is about?’” Jacobson said. “Tom Hanks is one of my favorite parts of that movie, but with this telling the coach is not and Nick knew that coming. It’s a different portrayal.”

While the way the show positions Porter will be different than Hanks’ film character — Jacobson noted that the Prime Video series is “not about the coach’s redemption story” — it doesn’t mean he won’t play a significant role in the show.

“Going into the writers’ room we were like how do you approach this coach character? That character is just so big and full-out,” she said. “He actually is really impactful, especially to my character later in the season because of what happens in the beginning.”

“A League Of Their Own” Series: A Whole New Character — A Black Woman

The series will feature another memorable presence from Marshall’s film: Black female baseball players.

The show’s co-creator and star said her take on “A League Of Their Own” will expand on one unnamed player featured in a famous sequence through an amalgamation of three real Black female baseballers — Connie Morgan, Toni Stone and Mamie Johnson — who competed alongside and against men in the Negro League.

“Their stories are fu–ing incredible and Penny Marshall, in the film,” Jacobson said, “was nodding to them when that foul ball is thrown back by a Black woman.”

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But Max isn’t just used to discuss race within the league. As Chanté told The Hollywood Reporter, “She is many things and does not want to be labeled as just one thing. She’s also trying to figure out exactly who she is.”

More than that, the series will openly discuss sexuality and gender identity, which Marshall merely alluded to in her film. For the creators, it was important to explore these topics because of how it affected the players. Graham said, “As we started to look more into the stories underneath it, we were like, ‘Oh, there’s a gigantic story here that hasn’t been told about queer women and women of color and ultimately joy—the work that goes into joy and finding a way to do the thing that you love in a world that doesn’t want you to.”

“I think so much of the show is about finding your team and your team, it’s not just on the field,” executive producer Desta Tedros Reff said. “I think that’s the real story and that’s a story we’ve always talked about wanting to tell — the real people that transcend the game. For me, it’s the story the movie didn’t get to carry.”

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