Thursday, July 24, 2014

Why can’t we make more feel-good sports movies for kids?


What ever happened to all the feel-good sports movies for kids? 
I remember several hit sports movies geared toward the child and adult audiences alike when I was growing up. 
I mean “The Mighty Ducks” (and its sequels), “Cool Runnings,” “Angels in the Outfield,” “Space Jam,” “Little Big League,” “Little Giants” and even “Air Bud” were all feel-good sports movies. 
They couldn’t have possibly used up all the good ideas for movies like that. Did it become unsuccessful to make those types of movies? Unprofitable? 
I was watching “The Mighty Ducks” not too long ago, and I was eating up every cheesy line and remembering a day that was so full of innocence and potential. I want my godson to feel that same way when he grows up, but right now those kinds of movies just don’t exist anymore. 
Why are there no more “Rookie of the Year” movies? What about “The Sandlot”?
There is no way that they are fresh out of ideas for movies like this. I refuse to believe that there isn’t a market for this type of movie. I mean participation and interest of kids and sports can’t be that low that a great movie in the vein of the aforementioned ‘90s classics couldn’t draw a profitable audience. 
I mean, there hasn’t been a golf movie yet, right? Why not get, say, the kid from the Sprint framily commercials to play a young teenager who buys some magical set of golf clubs from a garage sale that used to belong to Bobby Jones or Jack Nicklaus or heck, even Tiger Woods? The clubs instantly make him a world-class golfer, and he gets on the pro tour. “Gordon,” the goth weirdo that nobody really knows why he is around, could caddy for the kid. This could totally work. 
With the piqued interest in soccer throughout the United States thanks to the U.S. doing well at the World Cup, don’t tell me that some sort of underdog story about a kid making his way onto some all-star soccer team wouldn’t be a great movie. 
I can’t understand why this genre of movie has fizzled. I mean, it’s also been more than 20 years since the Mighty Ducks came out in 1992; why not remake it? It has passed that point where that’s a possibility. There is no doubt a plethora of child actors in the stable at Disney Channel would be willing to learn how to skate and film in Minnesota during the winter. 
Why can’t we make this happen? 
I want my godson and possible future children to have that same experience of a magical sports story that I did when I grew up in the ‘90s. 
And I have to admit that I would like to have some more movies to enjoy myself – the cheesier the better.

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