Taika Waititi’s football comedy Next Goal Wins has been pushed further back into 2023 – it will now be released in November.
The release of the long-awaited Next Goal Wins has been shunted back again, this time from September to the 17th of November.
The film stars Michael Fassbender and is directed by Taika Waititi and tells the real-life story of the ‘American Samoa soccer team, who’d previously suffered the worst loss in international soccer history, succumbing 31-0 to Australia. The events of Next Goal Wins will follow Fassbender’s character as he attempts to galvanise the worst team in international soccer during the qualifiers for the 2014 World Cup.’
Next Goal Wins commenced production all the way back in 2019, wrapping in January 2020, over three years ago. However, since then we’ve seen release slates change dramatically due to the global pandemic. Then, early in 2022, one of the film’s co-stars, Armie Hammer, found himself mired in serious scandal and the decision was made to reshoot his parts with Will Arnett, pushing the film back to April of this year.
Since then, there’s been two more shifts, first to September, then to November. No reason has been given, but we do know that releases are looking a little lighter in this part of the year so this could be Searchlight hoping to give the film a greater chance at the box office.
If nothing else, the film’s title is becoming increasingly apt: Next Goal Wins is usually what happens at the end of an overly-long kickabout when nobody can remember who was winning. Waiting for this film has certainly been a long process but hopefully nobody will remember that when it (possibly) releases in November and (hopefully) proves to be worth the wait.
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