A family film centered on the Atlanta Falcons hits Paramount+ this November

In what could be the darkest family film this side of The Black Cauldron, My Girl, My Dog Skip and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, Paramount+ will release a family comedy about a fictional Atlanta Falcons player this November.

Yes, you read that correctly. For the first time since 2019’s Brian Banks, the Falcons will be predominantly featured in a motion picture. No, it is not classified as a horror film.

The film in question, Fantasy Football, will star Power star Omari Hardwick, singer Kelly Rowland and Black-ish standout and 18-year-old producer Marsai Martin. It’s slated to hit Paramount+ on Nov. 25.

It’ll be the perfect complement to the Thanksgiving holiday, a sacred time set aside to argue with your inebriated uncle about politics and watch the Detroit Lions flail about while Creed performs at halftime.

No, Fantasy Football isn’t shaping up to be a Kubrickian work of terror about Super Bowl 51. Rather, it’s a film about a fictional Falcons running back who goes from being a fumble-prone journeyman to a star running back when his daughter is able to magically control him as if he was a Madden player.

We’ll let you read the full plot synopsis below, via The Futon Critic. No, this does not sound like a film Kindergarten Cop-era Arnold Schwarzenegger would’ve made in the 90s.

In this hilarious and heartwarming father-daughter sports fantasy, everything changes when Callie A. Coleman (Marsai Martin) discovers she can magically control her father, Bobby’s (Omari Hardwick) performance on the football field. When Callie plays as her dad, a running back for the Atlanta Falcons, in EA SPORTS(TM)’ “Madden NFL 23,” Bobby is transformed from a fumblitis-plagued journeyman to a star running back bound for superstardom alongside his daughter and wife Keisha (Kelly Rowland). With the NFL Playoffs looming and the pressures of Callie’s new commitment to her friends on the robotics team mounting, the two must forge ahead to keep the magic a secret as they juggle the highs and lows of their newfound success, all as they rediscover what it really means to be a family.

The film is reportedly co-sponsored by the Atlanta Falcons, so if you were hoping to actually see the Falcons win a meaningful game in this calendar year, this may be your best bet. With the team’s involvement, this film is probably destined to have a happy ending, one where leads are never squandered and consistent pass rushes exist.

An actual Falcons-centered film would involve an Ingmar Bergman-like descent into the human madness of isolation in an unforgiving world, bringing the lead Falcons player to abandon all hope for a football career, sever ties with his bitter family who resent his failure and roll around in the ashes of faded time as a cold universe looks on, uncaring. Or it’d be like one of those Human Centipede films. Y’know, pick your poison.

Fantasy Football is most likely going to be a harmless trifle for families of 31 NFL teams, something silly and fun to keep the kids from falling into the Ralph Bakshian nightmare of Cocomelon for a fleeting moment. For Falcons families, it’ll be a cruel reminder that life is never like it is in the movies, that hope only exists in the limitations of our hapless creativity.

So, you know, if you really love your kids, you’ll put Super Bowl 51 highlights on while playing Roomful of Teeth’s “Partia for 8 Voices: No. 4, Passacaglia” to set the mood. That’s what the youth of Atlanta really deserve: early 00s Darren Aronofsky levels of unfiltered human pain to remind them of why they should just take up painting watercolors as a hobby.

Anywho, if you’re looking for a fun family film for the holidays, Fantasy Football might have you covered. Just make sure your kids know that the truth is stranger than fiction, even when fiction involves a football player being magically controlled by his daughter like he’s a video game character. That’s way more believable than that Cowboys game from a couple of years ago, at the least.