Posted in: Amazon Studios, streaming, TV | Tagged: A League of Their Own, A League of Their Own (1992), Abbi Jacobson, amazon, prime video, tom hanks

A League of Their Own: Tom Hanks Proud of What Amazon Series Explores

When Amazon Prime Video created their TV reimaging of the 1992 Penny Marshall film A League of Their Own, creators Will Graham and Abbi Jacobson (who also stars) prided on being dramatically different from the film and their take on the franchise protagonists, the Rockford Peaches and the World War II-era All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL). While promoting his latest film in Pinocchio on Disney+, Tom Hanks, who starred as Peaches' manager and MLB player Jimmy Dugan in the Sony Pictures film, spoke about the opportunities the Prime Video series has to tackle the social issues his take on the subject never did.

"I'm really glad it's here because they can touch on some of the social things that were bypassed by the original," Hanks told The Hollywood Reporter. "That's where we are now. There's no reason not to get into the other aspects of who people love and why they play the game and stuff like that as well." In Prime Video's A League of Their Own, the series provided better POC and LGBTQ representation. "We want to talk about stories that were overlooked. We were talking about that throw [In the movie, a Black woman retrieves a foul ball, indirectly nodding to the league's racial bias]. We're not trying to tell the story of white women who got to play baseball in the 1940s — that was told," Jacobson told THR ahead of the show's Aug. 12 release. "Ours is about that generation of women and what happens when that door for the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League opens, and a lot of white women and white-passing women have that opportunity. But what happens when it's shut?"

None of the characters in the film are in the original series. Stars Geena Davis and Lori Petty, along with the late Marshall, gave their blessings during production. Rosie O'Donnell, Peaches' third baseperson Doris Murphy in the film, plays Vi, a lesbian owner of a gay speakeasy along with her wife in the Prime Video series. "It's kind of odd to realize — is that how old I am now? They're now making better versions of things that I made back in 1990-something?" Hanks observed. Pinocchio is available to stream on Disney+. Season one of A League of Their Own is available to stream on Amazon's Prime Video.

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