Disney Plus new sports drama Big Shot is coming in April, during today’s TCA a few interesting stories about the show’s creation were told.

  • Big Shot originally began five years ago as a pitch first picked up by ABC. At the time, the network chose not to continue with developing it. Later when Disney+ was in its infancy they looked for pitches at affiliates that were never developed and Big Shot was one from David E. Kelley they wanted.
  • The basketball element of the show was new territory for director and producer Bill D’Elia. The show hired a basketball consultant to make sure shooting those sequences feels as authentic as it can be portrayed.
  • Big Shot also marks Yvette Nicole Brown’s return to education TV after her long run on Community.
  • Big Shot is the latest in sports drama TV including last year’s smash hit Ted Lasso and Disney Plus other original Mighty Ducks series. According to showrunner Dean Lorey what sets this series apart is how they will utilize the sports element. Every basketball sequence we see serves to advance the stories of its unique team of characters.
  • The girls who find their way through this underdog basketball team Nell Verlaque (“Louise Gruzinsky”), Cricket Wampler (“Samantha “Giggles” Finkman”), Tiana Le (“Destiny Winters”), Monique Green (“Olive Cooper”), and Tisha Custodio (“Carolyn “Mouse” Smith”) were familiar to the sport and picked up on how to shoot the more advanced parts of the game quickly.
  • John Stamos plays disgraced college coach Marvyn Korn. Much of this character’s emotional compass resides with the coach’s daughter Emma played by Sophia Mitri Schloss who we’ll see go from a cross country phone call to a more on-screen character.

Disney’s Big Shot season one debuts weekly on Disney Plus starting April 16.