Prime Video has released a teaser trailer for the long-anticipated series reimagining A League of Their Own, based off of Penny Marshall‘s 1992 comedy. Amazon announced the premiere date for August 12 after being benched since its conception during the 2020 pandemic. Finally, it’s time to play ball!
In the teaser alone, we see women howling at the night sky, metalworking and throwing a fastball directly at a man’s car, all while Stevie Nicks belts her powerful anthem ‘Edge of Seventeen.’ The ladies behind A League of Their Own understand the hype that’s associated with the 1992 film, and they’re bringing a fresh look with brand-new characters.
The eight hour-long episodes will take place in 1943, the same year as the original movie starring Geena Davis and Tom Hanks, but intends to follow new storylines with refreshed perspectives, “taking a deeper look at race and sexuality,” reports Deadline. Co-creator and executive producer Abbi Jacobson (Broad City) opted to follow a new team’s navigation of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL), giving the writers and cast a chance to explore different issues from the first time around. Still taking place in World War II while the majority of men were drafted, A League of Their Own will show the initial pushback women dealt with at the time, as well as expand on how that affected women of color and other sexualities. A women’s league was unheard of at the time, but was created in an effort to keep baseball in the public eye, so like taking up construction and building planes and ships, women were suddenly being called on to do things they’d previously been told they couldn’t.
Jacobson and co-creator, Will Graham, put a lot of research into the foundation of the series including interviews with women athletes of the ’40s to better understand the struggle and joys of what baseball meant to them. Jacobson told Entertainment Weekly, “Team has a bunch of meanings in terms of baseball, but also, a lot of these characters are finding their community. That joy of finding others that are like you is pretty special.”
The series is made possible by an impressive team of women and men, including Jamie Babbit (But I’m A Cheerleader) who directed the pilot. The players for A League of Their Own include Jacobson, Chanté Adams, D’Arcy Carden, Gbemisola Ikumelo, Roberta Colindrez, Kelly McCormack, Priscilla Delgado, Nick Offerman who plays the team’s coach. Other cast members include Saidah Arrika Ekulona, Kate Berlant, Kendall Johnson, Alex Désert, Aaron Jennings, Molly Ephraim, Melanie Field, and Dale Dickey. Rosie O’Donnell will be making a guest appearance, not as her original character from the film but as a bartender.
All eight episodes will be streaming on Amazon Prime. Check out the trailer below:
