Hailing from Sony Pictures Animation, the studio behind Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, GOAT opened in theaters earlier this year and served a major slam dunk. The basketball-themed sports comedy, directed by Tyree Dillihay and produced by NBA legend Stephen Curry, was a massive critical and commercial success when it hit the big screen in February. It dominated the box office and earned rave reviews, with some even hailing it as a modern successor to Space Jam. Now, three months later, it is bouncing its way onto streaming – giving those who missed it the first time around a chance to discover why it was such a triumph.
GOAT is an original action-comedy set in a world of anthropomorphic animals in the same spirit as Zootopia, though many people actually view it as a modern-day equivalent to the 1996 Michael Jordan classic Space Jam due to them both being set in a sport-centric universe boasting high-stakes cartoon action. Stranger Things alum Caleb McLaughlin leads the voice cast as Will Harris, who, per the official synopsis for the film (below), is an underdog goat that dreams of becoming a pro player in a high-intensity sport called “roarball,” which is kind of similar to basketball but dominated by much larger, fiercer animal creatures.
“The story follows Will, a small goat with big dreams who gets a once-in-a-lifetime shot to join the pros and play roarball – a high-intensity, co-ed, full-contact sport dominated by the fastest, fiercest animals in the world. Will’s new teammates aren’t thrilled about having a little goat on their roster, but Will is determined to revolutionize the sport and prove once and for all that ‘smalls can ball!'”
McLaughlin is in good company in the voice cast, as he is joined by his former Stranger Things costar David Harbour as well as Curry, Gabriella Union, Aaron Pierre, Nicola Coughlan, Nick Kroll, Jennifer Hudson, and Patton Oswalt. Their combined star power and the positive word of mouth about the film seemingly helped to attract audiences, as GOAT emerged as a significant box office success, earning $192 million worldwide, per Box Office Mojo. It also surpassed Space Jam at the domestic box office to become the highest-grossing basketball film of all time and even managed to dethrone the 1976 boxing classic Rocky.
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This story originally appeared on Movieweb
