Tom Hanks returns to the diamond with a new baseball movie, 35 years after his classic

Tom Hanks — yes, that Tom Hanks — is picking up his baseball glove once again. You might think of him these days as everyone’s favourite everyman or, if you like your films animated, the guy who voices Woody. But let’s not forget: Hanks basically knocked it out of the park with one of the greatest sports films ever made, A League of Their Own, back in the early '90s. After that? Not a single sports film in over thirty years. Now, all of a sudden, he’s about to end that dry spell.

His new project is called The Comebacker, and it’s already stirred up quite a bit of competition in Hollywood. Studios wanted it badly enough that there was an actual bidding war — Sony Pictures came out on top, and they’re so pleased with themselves that they’ve locked in a big summer release: 30 July 2027, for anyone who likes to mark their calendar that far in advance. Someone at Sony has an eye for anniversaries too: it’ll be exactly 35 years on from A League of Their Own’s premiere.

Here’s the gist: Hanks is cast as a world-weary pitching coach who finds his whole life thrown into chaos after a vicious line drive — a ‘comebacker’, if you’re into baseball lingo — catches him right on the head. (Yes, apparently this is a thing that happens to coaches now and then. No, I don’t envy them.)

A few reasons people are actually paying attention to this one:

• Marielle Heller’s back in the director’s chair. She worked with Hanks before on the Fred Rogers biopic, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (the one that won him an Oscar nod back in 2019), so you know the pairing works.
• The script’s adapted from a short story by Dave Eggers. Heller’s writing the screenplay herself, based on Eggers’ 2024 tale of the same name. Hanks has previous: he was in A Hologram for the King (2016) and The Circle (2017), both Eggers adaptations, but this marks a different kind of homecoming — back to sport, back to the mound.
• It’s being billed as ‘a love letter to baseball’. How earnestly or ironically, we’ll have to wait and see.

For those who need a refresher, A League of Their Own (1992) is widely considered the gold standard for baseball films. Directed by Penny Marshall, it followed the rise of the Rockford Peaches — an all-female baseball team — and focused on two fiercely competitive sisters (Geena Davis and Lori Petty) and their dishevelled manager, Jimmy Dugan (that’s Hanks, of course). Hanks famously delivered the line:

'There’s no crying in baseball!'

— which AFI has since crowned the 54th greatest movie quote in film history. Not bad going, really.

The film still holds an 82% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and critics have kept it close to their hearts for its blend of humour, old-school charm, and that spot-on ensemble. This was no obscure sports flick for baseball obsessives: it raked in more than $132 million worldwide and is still quoted by people who haven’t seen a match since school.

Sony clearly hopes The Comebacker will recapture some of that magic — or at least make a decent showing at the box office. Hanks, meanwhile, is back in the dugout after several decades away from America’s favourite pastime. No pressure at all, obviously.