On Friday, Paramount released a trailer for Fantasy Football, the upcoming Paramount+ film produced in partnership with SpringHill, the Maverick Carter/LeBron James production company.
This is a kids film, so don’t get too caught up in the ridiculousness of the plot, which calls out cameos by CBS NFL personalities Nate Burleson, Jim Nantz, and Tony Romo.
Starring and produced by Marsai Martin (“Little”), joined by Omari Hardwick (“Army of the Dead,” “Pieces of Her”), Kelly Rowland (“American Soul”) and Rome Flynn (“How to Get Away with Murder”), the comedic family sports film FANTASY FOOTBALL is directed by Anton Cropper and also stars Elijah Richardson, Hanani Taylor, Abigail Killmeier, Tyla Harris and Isac Ivan, and features special star appearances by Nate Burleson, Jim Nantz and Tony Romo.
In this hilarious and heartwarming father-daughter sports fantasy, everything changes when Callie A. Coleman (Marsai Martin) discovers she can magically control her father, Bobby’s (Omari Hardwick) performance on the football field. When Callie plays as her dad, a running back for the Atlanta Falcons, in EA SPORTS Madden NFL 23, Bobby is transformed from a fumblitis-plagued journeyman to a star running back bound for superstardom alongside his daughter and wife Keisha (Kelly Rowland). With the NFL Playoffs looming and the pressures of Callie’s new commitment to her friends on the robotics team mounting, the two must forge ahead to keep the magic a secret as they juggle the highs and lows of their newfound success, all as they rediscover what it really means to be a family.
Burleson and Nantz (well, Nantz’s voice), along with Amazon’s Tony Gonzalez, appear in the trailer.
https://youtu.be/FYMaMlRuLAM
I’d love to see random Madden glitches pop up over the course of this film (which, of course, they won’t) and for Nantz and Romo to play it completely straight. “Wow, he turned invisible! That’s unbelievable!”
Anyway, Fantasy Football definitely isn’t targeted at most of our audience. It’s a kids movie. The NFL is further leaning into its relationship with Paramount-owned Nickelodeon (as it has with the Nickelodeon playoff games and NFL Slimetime) to target a younger audience, and that’s not a bad thing.