A new football movie from Disney+ is right around the corner. On Friday, the streaming service released the trailer for its original film Safety. Inspired by a true story, Safety is about Ray McElrathbey, a Clemson football player who goes through a series of challenging circumstances. With the Clemson community’s help, Ray finds success on the field while raising his 11-year old brother Fahmarr.
Safety stars Jay Reeves (All American, The Tax Collector) as Ray and Thaddeus J. Mixson as Fahmarr. The film also stars Corinne Foxx, Matthew Glave, Hunter Sansone, Amanda Warren, Miles Burris, Isaac Bell, Elijah Bell and James Badge Dale. Safety is directed by Reginald Hudlin (Marshall) and produced by Mark Ciardi, p.g.a. (Secretariat, Miracle) and Gordon Ray (Million Dollar Arm, The Rookie). Safety will debut exclusively on Disney+ on Friday, Dec. 11.
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“Safety is a movie about brotherhood and coming together for the greater good, which is a message our society needs right now,” Hudlin said in a statement. “It’s the story of a young man stuck in a situation where failure is not an option. Through sheer force of will, he does the impossible, which inspires the whole community around him to do the same. It’s a movie I can’t wait to watch with my family on Disney+ on December 11th, and for families everywhere to do the same.”
In real life, McElrathbey took Fahmarr into custody at 19 years old in 2006. He was a redshirt freshman at Clemson and didn’t want his brother to end up in foster care after their mom entered rehab for drug addiction. During the 2006 season, McElrathbey switched from defense to offense, and in the following summer, he tore his ACL, which ended his 2007 season, according to Greenville News. Clemson didn’t renew McElrathbey’s scholarship in 2008 but offered him an assistant coaching position. He graduated from Clemson in 2008 before transferring to Howard University graduate school. He played on its football team for a year and then ended his football career at Mars Hill University in 2010.
“You are a kid going off to college and you’re trying to focus on what you have to do here, and it happens a lot,” Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney said to The Clemson Insider last year when talking about McElrathbey. “Sometimes these kids get distracted or pulled by things that are going on at home that they have no control over it. All of sudden you have a crisis situation.”
