Amazon orders ‘A League of Their Own’ series with Chanté Adams

The show takes a deeper look at race and sexuality, following the journey of a whole new ensemble of characters

Aug 10, 2020

"The Photograph" World Premiere — Chanté Adams attends the world premiere of "The Photograph" World at SVA Theater on February 11, 2020 in New York City. (Photo by Steven Ferdman/Getty Images)

A television series based on the beloved 1992 film A League of Their Own has officially been nabbed by Amazon.

The streamer has officially ordered the project created by Abbi Jacobson and Will Graham to series.

The hour-long episodes will star Chanté Adams (The Photograph) and Jacobson, along with D’Arcy Carden, Gbemisola Ikumelo, Kelly McCormack, Roberta Colindrez, and Priscilla Delgado, with recurring guest stars Molly Ephraim, Kate Berlant and Melanie Field.

According to Amazon, this version evokes the joyful spirit of director Penny Marshall‘s beloved classic, while widening the lens to tell the story of an entire generation of women who dreamed of playing professional baseball. The show takes a deeper look at race and sexuality, following the journey of a whole new ensemble of characters as they carve their own paths towards the field, both in the league and outside of it.

“Will asked if I wanted to do it together and I said yes immediately. I grew up loving the movie as well,” Jacobson told The Hollywood Reporter. “I was in the middle of writing season four of Broad City and we had just done this episode with a montage of powerful, revolutionary women, and our editor at the time wanted to put Mamie Johnson in it. I didn’t know who she was. She was one of the first and only Black women to play in the male Negro leagues professionally. When Will and I started talking about the ways in which we wanted to do our version, that felt more real, nuanced and gritty and [a way to] incorporate more women’s stories.”

Spotify Announces Addition Of Video To Its Streaming Services — Abbi Jacobson, an actress from the Comedy Central show Broad City, speaks at a media event announcing updates to the music streaming application Spotify on May 20, 2015 in New York City. (Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images)

The series is certainly inspired by the film that starred Gina Davis, Rosie O’Donnell, and Madonna, but it will tackle issues like racism and sexuality in a whole new way.

“The pilot, more than the rest of the series, nods to the film in a bunch of different ways. But we are really leaning into the fact that Black women weren’t allowed to even try out,” she explained.

“Our version is very much about inclusion of women in professional baseball, but it’s also about the inclusion of white women and white-passing women in professional baseball. There are really heavy scenes that we’re also exploring in a major way,” she added.

We can’t wait to see this series when it hits Amazon.

“There’s no crying in baseball, or at Prime Video,” Vernon Sanders, co-head of television at Amazon Studios, said in a statement. “Will and Abbi have taken a classic movie, reimagining it for a new generation with new characters and their own fresh, modern vision on a timeless story of big dreams, friendship, love, and, of course, baseball. We’re so excited to partner with Sony to bring this emotional, exciting new series to our Prime Video customers around the world.”

Jeff Frost, president of Sony Pictures Television, echoed those sentiments.

“Abbi and Will have done a masterful job of reimagining this timeless classic,” he added. “We are very thankful to our partners at Amazon for bringing this incredibly relevant and important story to audiences around the globe.”

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