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Quack! Quack! Quack!

The Mighty Ducks franchise may be coming to the small screen. Sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that ABC Signature Studios is in early development for a series based on the 1990s dramedy about a youth hockey team. A network is not yet attached.

ABC Signature Studios, the cable- and streaming-focused arm of ABC Studios, declined comment.

Sources tell THR that ABC Signature head Tracy Underwood, always looking to identify Disney titles and intellectual property that can appeal to a global audience, put Mighty Ducks in development after being approached by original trilogy screenwriter Steven Brill and original producer Jordan Kerner. Brill will pen the script in-house for ABC Signature. If that comes in well, ABC Signature would package the project with talent and shop it to streamers this year.

Feature film star Emilio Estevez is not currently attached as a script has not yet been written. What remains unclear is if the potential Mighty Ducks TV series is a sequel or reboot as the logline for the half-hour or hour project is being kept under wraps.

Sources stress that the Mighty Ducks TV show is in its early stages and will not be taken out anytime soon. As for a potential home, insiders note that ABC Signature could take the project out to other broadcast or cable networks in addition to shopping it to streaming platforms. (Another option could be to keep it in-house and set it up on Disney's forthcoming stand-alone SVOD service that will be home to Marvel and Star Wars movies as well as original scripted TV shows based on Star Wars, High School Musical and Monsters, Inc.)

The Mighty Ducks was released in 1992 by Walt Disney Pictures. Produced on a budget of $10 million, the Stephen Harek-directed movie starred Estevez as Gordon Bombay, a Minneapolis attorney who winds up coaching a pee-wee hockey team as community service after being arrested for drunk driving. Despite negative reviews from critics, the film went on to be a box office hit, grossing $50.7 million domestic. That led to two sequels — 1994's D2: The Mighty Ducks (with Estevez) and 1996's D3: The Mighty Ducks, which was built around original film star Josh Jackson's Charlie Conway. They grossed $45.6 million and $22.9 million, respectively, with the success of the first feature inspiring producers Disney to name Anaheim's NHL team after the franchise.

Should the ABC Signature effort come to fruition, it would be the second time the Mighty Ducks has been explored for the small screen. An animated series was launched in 1996 on ABC and as part of its syndicated programming block The Disney Afternoon. The 26-episode series last aired on Toon Disney in 2004.

Reboots continue to remain in high demand as broadcast, cable and streaming services look for proven IP in a bid to cut through a cluttered scripted landscape that is expected to top 500 shows in 2019. Key to them is having the original producers attached, which Mighty Ducks has with Brill and Kerner as well as ownership of the IP.

For its part, ABC Signature's credits include Freeform's Marvel drama Cloak and Dagger, FXX's animated Deadpool show and Showtime's recently renewed SMILF, among others.

Brill is repped by UTA and Brillstein Entertainment Partners. Kerner, whose company produced all three features, is with Paradigm.

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Early last year, a report came out revealing that Disney planned to turn its beloved 1990s franchise The Mighty Ducks into a TV series. Last November, word arrived that the show was being configured for the new streaming service Disney+, but things have been quiet since then. Now we finally have some news about the upcoming show, including a logline which lays out how this story will be slightly different than the movies that ’90s kids grew up watching.

/Film has received a pre-production breakdown of the half-hour series, which reveals that it will shoot in Vancouver from February 10, 2020 until June 1, 2020. Here’s the logline for the new series:

After getting kicked off the junior division Mighty Ducks team, a 13-year-old boy and his mom decide to start their own team, finding players, a coach, and a place to play.

That’s quite a diversion from the plot of the first movie, which features a hotshot lawyer being forced to coach a Pee-Wee team as punishment for a drunk driving incident. In the movie, coach Gordon Bombay (Emilio Estevez) gradually rediscovers his childhood love of the game of hockey and renames his ragtag team The Mighty Ducks, forming an underdog squad that eventually goes on to overcome the reigning champs of the league.

But it sounds like the Ducks are already an established team in the world of this show, and there’s no mention of Bombay specifically. In fact, no casting announcements have been made yet at all, so there’s still a chance Estevez could return to reprise his part, maybe stepping into the mentor role played by Hans (Joss Ackland) in the films. Joshua Jackson played the young Mighty Ducks player Charlie Conway in the movies and seemed to be following in Bombay’s footsteps, so I expected this show to take the Cobra Kai approach and have him slide into the new coach role. That could technically still happen – Jackson is currently filming a mini-series – but no word yet if that’s the direction they’re actually going to take here.

Interestingly, the earliest reports about this show suggested that original Mighty Ducks producer Jordan Kerner would be involved with this TV version, but his name is not on the official crew list. However, Steven Brill, who wrote all three Ducks films and produced both of the sequels, is still on board as an executive producer here. He’s joined by Josh Goldsmith, Cathy Yuspa, George Heller, and Brad Petrigala, who are all also executive producers.

Based on these shooting dates, the show could debut sometime in the second half of 2020, but Disney+ has yet to issue an official premiere date. Stay tuned for more Mighty Ducks news as we learn it.

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Last month we brought you exclusive character details for the upcoming Mighty Ducks series coming to Disney’s streaming service Disney+. Now, we have our first major casting for the series.

We have exclusively learned that original Mighty Ducks star Emilio Estevez is set to return as Coach Gordon Bombay in the ten-episode, half-hour series. Estevez is one of the series leads, so his role is no mere cameo.

Estevez starred in Both The Mighty Ducks and its sequel D2: The Mighty Ducks. He also appeared in the franchise’s third outing, D3: The Mighty Ducks, but due to scheduling conflicts, his role had to be reduced to a cameo. So it is good to see that he his returning to a starring role. As of now, it is unknown if any other actors from the original films will also return for the series.

The series focuses on a 13-year-old boy who gets kicked himself off the junior division Mighty Ducks team. He and his mom decide to start their own team, finding players, a coach, and a place to play. The original film focused on a reckless young lawyer Gordon Bombay who, after getting arrested for drunk driving, was forced to coach a kids’ hockey team for his community service.

Take a look at some of the character breakdowns below, with others available as well:

Koob: A shy kid who always plays video games.

Nick: Likes to pretend he has his own imaginary tv show.

Mary: Only described as the popular girl both on the team and at school.

Lauren: An unpopular girl who likes to wear wings and a cape at school and pretend she’s a fairy-magician. Try to be friends with the more popular Mary but she ignores her.

Cuban Fury director James Griffiths has been tapped to direct all the episodes. The show is set to begin filming this March in Vancouver, Canada, and is expected to wrap in June. Original trilogy screenwriter Steven Brill and original producer Jordan Kerner are on board, while Josh Goldsmith, Cathy Yuspa, George Heller and Brad Petrigala will all executive produce the series with Brill.

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Mighty Ducks Star Shaun Weiss Arrested for Residential Burglary While High on Meth: Police

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