Colin Hanks endorsed an old tweet by director Matthew A. Cherry, pitching a sequel to A League Of Their Own, which would follow the three black women who played in the Negro Leagues. The original film featured an all-star cast, including Geena Davis, Lori Petty, Madonna, Rosie O’Donnell, and Hanks’ father, Tom, as the curmudgeonly but ultimately inspiring coach Jimmy Dugan. The 1992 film tells the tale of the professional baseball league that was set up during World War II, featuring female players instead of males, as they had all gone off to fight the war.
The movie was a critical and commercial success, making over $130 million at the box office, and is regarded as a modern classic by many. It spawned a short-lived TV series in 1993, and Amazon is currently developing a series based on the movie. In December 2018, Cherry posted a tweet that pitched a sequel idea. The tweet showed a scene from A League Of Their Own, where a fly ball is picked up by a black woman, who throws it back to the players like a pro. Cherry posited that the sequel would reveal the woman to be one of the three who played in the Negro Leagues, and would follow their careers.
Over a year after Cherry tweeted it, the idea has received new attention, with Colin Hanks replying on Twitter that the concept is a “no-brainer.” Actress Gabrielle Union also tweeted her support. The renewed attention the tweet has gotten comes in light of the recent focus on telling Black stories, a side benefit of the Black Lives Matter protests currently taking place in the US and around the world. You can see Colin Hanks and Union’s tweets below.
Cherry hasn’t responded to either Hanks or Union’s tweets, but did retweet Hanks’. The filmmaker and former NFL player is currently an executive at Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions. He is best known for writing, producing, and directing Hair Love, which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short at this year’s Oscars. He’s also directed several TV episodes, on shows such as The Last O.G and Black-ish.
Despite the tweet being quite an old one, the renewed attention has thrust Cherry’s idea in the spotlight. The story of the women who played in the Negro Leagues seems like it was made for a film or TV series. And given the desperate need for more Black stories told by Black people, it is, as Colin Hanks says, a “no-brainer.”
It will be interesting to see if it goes anywhere. Cherry is a busy filmmaker, having just been tapped to direct The Come Up, but one assumes that he would jump at the chance to tell the story, and it’s clear the idea has been bouncing around in his head for a while. Whether there is will from a studio to make the story remains to be seen, but Cherry might be able to use the renewed interest in the project created by Hanks and Union to turn his idea into a reality.
