If you’re a fan of kids sports movies from the 1990s, then stick around!
Because you’re about to discover 5 amazing behind the scenes facts
about the 1991 classic The Mighty Ducks.
The original version of The Mighty Ducks was going to be for older audiences
instead of the family-friendly sports movie we know it as today.
The original script had Gordon Bombay as a recovering ex-NHL player
who wanted revenge on his coach by becoming the coach for their rival team.
But almost everything about that story changed
[glass shatter sound]
once the movie rights were bought by Disney
who wanted the movie’s adult themes and muted and dark humor
to be subbed out to make it more family-friendly.
Bombay: “Hey get your mouth off the window!”
So Bombay was changed from an ex-NHL player into a lawyer.
The DUI scene was kept in from the original script,
but Bombay’s substance abuse problem was greatly downplayed
to become a one-off moment of drunk driving in order to get him to coach a pee-wee team
to bring the focus on kids rather than on Bombay.
And along with that came all the kid-friendly humor filled with fart jokes
“Goldberg!”
“Hey! It wasn’t me, alright!”
silly kid antics
and memorable one-liners.
“Forget it, cake eater!”
And I think the movie was much better off as a result.
Being a movie about ice skating, you can imagine one of the main requirements on the casting call
would be that the kid actors know how to skate and play hockey, right?
Most of the kid actors– or let’s be honest their parents,
had fibbed that they knew how to skate and play hockey when they really didn’t.
But the producers predicted that this was going to be the case.
So in addition to the acting boot camp the kids would all have to do as part of their work on the set,
they also were required to attend a hockey boot camp as well.
Bombay: "How lazy can you be?
They're killing us out there!"
It’s often said that Hollywood has run out of ideas and its just rehashing the same stories
over and over again, just with different characters and settings.
Though I don’t subscribe to that belief about Hollywood films as a whole,
there is truth to that statement as far as The Mighty Ducks is concerned.
In the 1970s the movie "The Bad News Bears" is very similar to The Mighty Ducks
because it is also about a guy with an alcohol problem
who becomes a coach for a lousy little league baseball team
who starts to win once they all get their act together.
The switch to hockey as the sport of choice instead of baseball
came about because Mighty Ducks writer Steve Brill is a hockey fan,
but also because of how the sport had recently found its place in American culture
after the USA beat the Soviet Union in the “Miracle on Ice” match during the 1980 Winter Olympics.
Which Disney has also turned into a great hockey sports movie.
And because “The Great One” Wayne Gretzky –pretty much the greatest Hockey player ever–
helped popularize the sport in California when he was traded to the Los Angeles Kings in 1988.
Bombay: “You May have paid for this jersey, sir. But you didn’t earn it!”
There were quite a few actors considered for Coach Bombay before Emilio Estevez landed the role,
such as Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, and Michael J. Fox.
Even Bill Murray has been listed as a possible choice,
but was deemed as too old to play the part.
Another story out there says that before the role was offered to Emilio Estevez,
it was first offered to his brother Charlie Sheen.
The coveted role of Charlie Conway also went through a couple big name actors
such as a young Jake Gyllenhaal who had to turn down the role
because his parents wouldn’t let him be in the movie.
And the extremely talented Leonardo DiCaprio also auditioned for the role,
but he actually lost the part to Joshua Jackson.
But judging how Jackson embodied the role of Charlie so perfectly,
I think it’s pretty clear that they made the right choice.
You may not have known that a TV series based on the franchise
titled The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers is going to release this Friday, March 26th on Disney+.
The series will be a reunion for many of the original cast members,
including the return of Emilio Estevez to reprise his role as Gordon Bombay.
In a surprising turn of events, the story will turn the tables on the Ducks hockey team
where–to borrow the line from The Dark Knight–
“You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain”.
And in this case the latter is true for the Ducks.
Because they are now the powerhouse team that has become highly selective about who can and should play on their team.
So after the main hero Evan is kicked out, he and his mom, played by Gilmore Girls star Lauren Graham,
decide to take matters into their own hands
by creating a new hockey team of underdogs and enlist the aid of the reluctant Gordon Bombay
who feels that his life in hockey hasn’t amounted to anything.
If you want to discover what was real and fake about the movie Remember the Titans,
then click the video on the left.
Or click the suggested video on the right to enjoy more fun facts about your favorite films.