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THE MIGHTY DUCKS Might Become a Television Show

There are two universal truths the House of Mouse is evidently betting on when it comes to television shows: people love ’90s nostalgia, and people love hockey. One of those is maybe less apt than the other, but the power of stuff that came out over 20 years ago is strong enough to make Disney and ABC entertain the idea of bringing their family sports comedy The Mighty Ducks to the small screen, for streaming services, according to THR. The publication hastened to add this is in very early stages and no pilot script has been written, but it’s in the cards.

The project comes from the original trilogy screenwriter Steven Brill and original producer Jordan Kerner. Brill will write the pilot script for ABC Signature and, if the head mucky mucks like it, the underdog ice skaters will get shopped around to streaming services later in the year. None of the original cast is currently attached, and there’s no word if this will be a continuation or a reboot, though my bet would be the latter.

The Mighty Ducks was a major franchise for Disney in the ’90s. The 1992 first film saw Emilio Estevez as a big shot alcoholic lawyer who has to do community service by coaching the losingest pee-wee hockey team in the league. It was a real Bad News Bears on ice situation, but it proved popular enough with audiences to warrant a sequel in 1994 where the Ducks go to the Olympics (it was the year after Cool Runnings, so the Olympics were huge), and a third movie in 1996 where they go to a preppy boarding school. That was their whole thing; they were always underdogs.

Addendum: After I’d written this, I was informed by Nerdist News writer Aliza Pearl that in the second one it wasn’t the Olympics; it was the Junior Goodwill Games. I was going from memory, because why would they have to play against a hardened and nigh-professional Icelandic team food goodwill? Anyway, I was wrong.

So popular was The Mighty Ducks that the Walt Disney Company started a professional NHL hockey team in 1993 called The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, and even went weird with a cartoon series in 1996 about a team of hockey playing alien ducks who come to Earth and fight evil dragon aliens while also being the actual Anaheim hockey team. It was…such a weird concept, but I definitely watched it.

Will you be excited to see The Mighty Ducks fly again on the small screen? Should they instead do a reboot of the cartoon? Let us know in the comments below!

Image: Disney

Kyle Anderson is the Associate Editor for Nerdist. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Twitter!

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