The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers: Will Joshua Jackson Return? — EP Weighs In

Keisha Hatchett
·3 min read
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The Ducks will fly again in The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers, premiering Friday, March 26 on Disney+. With Emilio Estevez reprising his film role as coach Gordon Bombay in the 10-episode first season, that raises questions about whether or not other former Ducks will lace back up— like maybe Charlie Conway (played by Joshua Jackson), Connie (Marguerite Moreau) or Adam Banks aka Cake Eater (Vincent LaRusso)?

Executive producer Steven Brill, who wrote all three Mighty Ducks films, addressed the possibility of familiar faces appearing in the streaming series, telling reporters on Wednesday at the Television Critics Association winter press tour, “We’ve executed certain aspects of that question.”

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When pressed further on whether not Jackson and other familiar faces from the films will reprise their roles, Brill remained tight-lipped about potential cameos. “We’ve talked to Josh [Jackson] over the years developing this and he’s part of the family, part of the group… and everyone else, when and where they show up, is an open, exciting question,” he added.

The Disney+ series follows 12-year-old Evan (Boardwalk Empire’s Brady Noon), who starts his own team with help from his mom Alex (Gilmore Girls‘ Lauren Graham) after being cut from the Ducks. This new band of misfits will “challenge the cutthroat, win-at-all-costs culture of competitive youth sports” that the current iteration of the Ducks subscribes to. “The Ducks are the logical extension of where we left them after the three movies. When they got better, stronger, faster, bigger, they got tied into the sports culture which seemed to get more and more out of control,” Brills explained.

Other interesting tidbits we learned:

* Gordon Bombay is a very different person from where we left off with him in D3: The Mighty Ducks. In the film, he walks smiling into a sea of cheering fans — our heroes won their big game! — with the intent of joining the Junior Goodwill Games. However, the man we meet in Game Changers is “completely disengaged from the world,“ Estevez teased at TCA. The good news, however, is that he’ll start to come out of his shell over the course of the season and re-engage with the kids.

* Don’t rule out a potential romance between Bombay and Evan’s mom Alex, who will coach the Don’t Bothers. Graham teased a “slow burn” dynamic, also describing their blossoming friendship as “interesting and complicated.”

* Estevez was supposed to direct Episode 8 but changed his mind after shooting the first season under strict COVID protocols; executive producer Michael Spiller stepped in to helm the episode instead. “I said, ‘Look, I think this is going to be too big of a lift to do both sides of the camera,’” he recalled.

Want more scoop on Mighty Ducks, or for any other show? Email InsideLine@tvline.com and your question may be answered via TVLine’s Inside Line column.

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