The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers is on Disney Plus March 26. Emilio Estevez reprises his role as coach Gordon Bombay from the ’90s film franchise.
Set in Minnesota, a player on a fearsome youth hockey team is cut and he and his mother, played by Lauren Graham, set out to build their own team of misfits, with an assist from coach Gordon.
Creator Steve Brill approached Estevez a couple years ago about bringing back Mighty Ducks. “I said, ‘Well, sure, if we can capture the magic of the first films, the magic of the franchise,’ ” Estevez said at last month’s TCA Winter Press Tour. “ ‘If we can create a cinematic experience and not just try to sort of cash in on the nostalgia aspect of it.’ And I think that's ultimately what we’ve done.”
Brill is an executive producer.
Graham said the series reminds parents to chill out at their kids’ games. “What the series is looking at is how important is winning, how wrapped up have we gotten in achievement?” she said. “I have cousins who are in this world with their kids, who saw the trailer and said that the parents didn’t look bad enough.”
The Mighty Ducks also reminds kids to just have fun on the field, court or rink. “Kids these days, they have trainers,” executive producer and showrunner Josh Goldsmith said. “They specialize. They eat salads. They get flexor injuries very early in their sports careers.”
Added exec producer/showrunner Cathy Yuspa, “They’re mini-pros.”
Season two of Boston drama City on a Hill starts on Showtime March 28. Kevin Bacon and Aldis Hodge star. The season centers on a federal housing project in Roxbury plagued with drug violence and a distrust in law enforcement.
Bacon directs the premiere. “When you get through a whole season, you really learn these characters pretty intimately and also the tone of the show, the look of the show, the back story of everything,” Bacon said at the TCA Press Tour. “So a lot of your homework is already done.”
Bacon acknowledged directing and starring is “a lot of work.”
“I like to think that if I really understand a character, you can kind of throw anything at me, and I can just live in that moment as that guy,” he added. “And, so, going back and forth between being behind the camera, in front of the camera, was pretty seamless for me.”
Executive producer Tom Fontana shared his thoughts on plotting out a new season. “What we are trying to do is find a story that really happened in Boston in this period,” he said, “and then fictionalize it so that we can incorporate our regular characters into the story.”
