Ron Howard’s World Series doc for Apple takes cinematic approach
By Mike Mazzeo
November 4, 2024
Iconic filmmaker Ron Howard had spoken with Major League Baseball starting in 2022 about potentially doing a documentary film about a three-game series within the regular season, an homage of sorts to his fandom of Buzz Bissinger’s 2005 book, “Three Nights In August.”
After several conversations, however, MLB had a much bigger idea in mind.
“I think MLB started thinking, let’s shoot higher,” Howard recalled. “Let’s make it the World Series.”
Howard is a baseball aficionado with a sizable memorabilia collection. He’s also an executive producer of an all-access documentary that has been shot on the 2024 World Series, which is slated to be released in the spring.
“Our relationship with Ron stems from two things: Our desire to work with the best to ever do it, and his love for baseball,” Nick Trotta, MLB’s vice president of global media programming and licensing, told Sports Business Journal shortly after the Dodgers won the World Series at Yankee Stadium. “He said to me last night, ‘I can’t believe I’m affiliated with MLB.’ And I was like, ‘Are you serious?’”
The 2024 World Series doc will air on Apple TV+, in partnership with MLB and Imagine Entertainment. Yankees legend Derek Jeter is an executive producer via his production company, Cap 2 Productions. R.J. Cutler, who heads This Machine Filmworks, is the director.
Trotta said Howard, who won the 2001 Academy Award for Best Director for “A Beautiful Mind,” reached out to MLB after word got out about its studio strategy, and the league’s vision to work with the best directors and producers in the industry. They had many conversations about baseball and movies, culminating with the World Series documentary project. It is a one-off, but Howard hopes to do more.
Cutler got to know Howard through a project This Machine Filmworks worked on with Imagine Entertainment, “Murf The Surf,” a 2023 documentary about a jewel heist at the Museum of Natural History. Marc Gilbar, president of Imagine Brands, knew Cutler, a lifelong New York Mets fan, loved baseball, and asked if he wanted to direct it. Cutler immediately said yes over the phone.
“I love baseball for so many reasons, but one of them is it’s like life,” Cutler said. “There is no clock, and you don’t know when it’s going to end.”
Cutler envisions the World Series film being three, hourlong episodes. There were 55 credentialed crew with the documentary, including eight film crews, and a production trailer outside Yankee Stadium. The film also will be able to use the Fox game broadcasts, as well as social media footage, providing a comprehensive and unique view.
“This could be the most cinematic telling of a real baseball story ever,” Cutler said.
Howard said the film is like a combination of a concert documentary, a nature doc and a sociopolitical doc. “It’s really about understanding the cultural impact of events like this,” Howard said. “You say, ‘World Series,’ it means different things to different people.”
The types of people covered will be vast.
“We’re looking to tell stories of people whose lives are changed by this series. And there are so many,” Cutler said. “A fan, an umpire who’s never umpired a World Series game before, family members of the players. We’re trying to be all over the place.”
While the series may not have gone seven games, there were still plenty of dramatic moments, highlighted by Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman’s home run barrage — including a walk-off grand slam in Game 1 — that landed him the Most Valuable Player award for the World Series.
“The interesting thing about documentaries is you may write an outline, you may have a point of view about it, but you have to be ready to be wrong and discover the real story within the story,” Howard said.
Dodgers slugger Shohei Ohtani, who battled through a shoulder injury he suffered in Game 2, also intrigued Howard.
“Occasionally, athletes come along and rewrite the rulebook and expand our expectations,” Howard said. “And he’s exceeding that.”
The project was part of MLB and Imagine Entertainment’s partnership, which was announced in April 2023. Conversations with Apple began through MLB’s relationship with it via “Friday Night Baseball.” Apple acquired the project months before the Yankees-Dodgers matchup was decided, though it was only announced on Oct. 17. And the editing process will begin next week.
“We’re going to have a lot of eyeballs on this film,” Howard said.
MLB certainly hopes that keeps eyes on its sport.
Said Trotta, “Baseball movies make baseball fans.”
