Emilio Estevez’s ‘Mighty Ducks 4’ Pitch Rejected After ‘Game Changers’ Disney+ Show’s Failure

Following The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers, a fourth Mighty Ducks movie nearly happened.

Via Variety, Emilio Estevez, who starred in all three films and the first season of the Disney+ series as Coach Gordon Bombay, revealed on the Happy Sad Confused podcast that he wrote a script for The Mighty Ducks 4.

“I wanted to make up for all of the disasters that happened on the Game Changers series,” Estevez admitted. “[It’s] a feature script that had coach Bombay coming back, being pulled back in by Joshua Jackson’s character and Kenan Thompson’s character, and to coach a new team, an expansion team, for the professional women’s hockey league. So, it would be an all-girl team. Now, when we discover Bombay, he’s coaching roller derby, and so he says, ‘My girls are going with me. They have to have a shot.’ It was charming and contemporary and cool and organically of the moment. It’s where we’re at… Disney was like, ‘We don’t want to pursue that.’”

Although Estevez appeared in the first season of Game Changers in a supporting role, he left ahead of Season 2. A source close to production claimed there was a disagreement over ABC Signature’s COVID-19 vaccination requirement. The studio decided not to renew Estevez’s contract for Season 2 since he wouldn’t confirm he would comply with the policy, which required vaccination against COVID-19 for all actors and crew who came into contact with them.

Directed by Stephen Herek and written by Steven Brill, The Mighty Ducks released in 1992 and centered on a youth league hockey team. It spawned two sequels, D2: The Mighty Ducks in 1994 and D3: The Mighty Ducks in 1996, as well as an animated TV series that ran for one season from 1996 to 1997 on ABC and in syndication. The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers premiered in 2021 on Disney+ and served as a follow-up to the film. It ran for two seasons, ending in November 2022.

Since The Mighty Ducks is Disney, it’s unlikely that a fourth film will be shopped around elsewhere, but it’s always possible the executives will change their minds in the future. It’s certainly an intriguing plot and would have brought back two fan-favorites from the films, now all grown up. Fans will just have to settle with the films, which are all streaming on Disney+. The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers is no longer streaming on Disney+.