Taika Waititi’s Next Goal Wins pushes release to September

Taika Waititi is leaving the realm of the gods for somewhere a little more terrestrial with his next movie, but we have a bit more of a wait until we can finally see it. Next Goal Wins was previously slated to hit theaters on April 21, 2023, but Disney has pushed the release of the soccer comedy back to September 22, 2023.

Starring Michael Fassbender, Next Goal Wins follows a Dutch-American coach who is tasked with turning the infamously terrible American Samoa national team into an elite squad. The film also stars Elisabeth Moss, Will Arnett, and Rhys Darby. Taika Waititi directed the movie from a script he co-wrote the Iain Morris.

“The story is about the worst soccer team in the world, who famously experienced the biggest loss in an international match against Australia, 31-0, which is about a goal every four minutes,” Taika Waitit told Entertainment Weekly last month. “After suffering that huge defeat, they applied to the soccer federation to find a coach who could get them from the very, very bottom of the FIFA rankings.” Next Goal Wins is based on the 2014 documentary of the same name, which helped introduce Waititi to a story he’d never heard before, and although he’d never made a sports film before and didn’t know all that much about it, he loves a good underdog story.

Most of my films are about people who live on the margins, or are a little bit left out, and it just fit right in for me. It’s a true story, but it’s got all the elements that all the great sports films have. It’s basically the Cool Runnings of soccer.

As for Taika Waitit’s future with the Thor franchise, the director is “definitely” down to return for more assuming Chris Hemsworth is also on board. Thor: Love and Thunder wasn’t embraced with the same enthusiasm as Thor: Ragnarok, with audiences thinking that it was a little too comedic and light. Chris Hemsworth believes that if the franchise is to return, it needs another reinvention. “You look at Thor 1 and 2, they were quite similar. Ragnarok and Love and Thunder are similar. I think it’s about reinventing it,” Hemsworth said. “I’ve had such a unique opportunity with Infinity War and Endgame to do very drastic things with the character. I enjoy that, I like keeping people on their toes. It keeps me on my toes. It keeps me invested.” Next Goal Wins is now set for a September 22, 2023 release; hopefully we’ll get to see a trailer soon.

More to come…