Is “Big Shot” Returning For A Third Season?
One of the biggest surprise original series to arrive on Disney+ is “Big Shot”, a series that stars John Stamos as a temperamental college basketball coach who gets fired from his job and must take a teaching and coaching job at Westbrook, an elite private high school for girls and soon learns that the teenage players require empathy and vulnerability – foreign concepts for the stoic Coach Korn. By learning to connect with his players and his daughter, Marvyn starts to grow into the person he’s always hoped to be. The girls learn to take themselves more seriously, finding their footing both on and off the court.
In the second season, Marvyn’s latest plan toward relevance is to get his team broadcast on ESPN and his method is to recruit an unlikely player: Ava, a gutsy beach volleyball phenom whose public tantrum got her ousted from her own sport. Between losing their assistant coach Holly Barrett to a rival school, new friction amongst teammates, a sudden and unexpected proximity to boys, and off-the-court disasters that no one could’ve predicted, this season, the Westbrook Sirens have even more to prove.
“Big Shot” stars John Stamos, Jessalyn Gilsig, Sophia Mitri Schloss, Nell Verlaque, Tiana Le, Tisha Custodio,
Cricket Wampler, Sara Echeagaray and Yvette Nicole Brown.
The series has been written and executive produced by David E. Kelley and Dean Lorey and produced by ABC Studios. Brad Garrett (“Single Parents”), who pitched the original idea to Kelley, is also an executive producer on the one-hour dramedy, as is Bill D’Elia, who directed the first episode.
Has “Big Shot” Been Renewed For A Third Season?
The first season was released in April 2021, with ten episodes being released weekly, with a second season announcement following a few months after the season finale was released on Disney+. The second season was released in October 2022. However, the entire second season was released at once, which generally usually isn’t a good sign when it comes to Disney+ releases, as “Diary Of A Future President” also suffered from the same treatment and never returned for a third season.
The only other issue for a potential return of “Big Shot” for a third season, is that John Stamos did reveal to the Los Angeles Times how close they were to cancellation after the first season:
I loved that I was part of the beginning of Disney+. If I weren’t there, I’d be like, “I want to get on Disney+.”
“Big Shot” was not getting picked up after last year. We were on episode eight or nine out of 10, and I remember saying, “Let’s just pick the show up now, we’ll take a month off, write new scripts, ‘cause the girls are going to get old.” They’re like, “Let it air first.” It comes out, it does whatever. I said, “Will you pick it up now?” “Well, let’s see a few more shows.” Weeks go by and weeks go by; all 10 come out. So I start calling around. It’s like, “Well, it didn’t do well in India, because they don’t play basketball” — all these analytics and graphs and charts. They know when you turn it on, when you turn it off, when you take a pee, how long the pee was, did you come back after the pee. Once there were the Brandon Tartikoffs [television executive], and these guys who would pick stuff up from their heart. And so I was waiting for that: “Where’s Disney? You guys are about heart.”
I said to myself, “John, take the hit, it’s not coming back.” And then in one of the corniest moments of my life, I go, “Wait a minute — what would Coach Korn do here? Can I look in the mirror and say I did everything I could to get this show picked up?” And Peter Rice [then-chairman of Walt Disney Television] lives down the street from me, so I emailed him, “Do you want to take a walk around the neighborhood?” And I poured my heart out about what the show meant to me. Plus, here’s a show with a 98% diverse female cast. In its DNA it’s about female empowerment. We need these kind of shows. That was on a Thursday; Friday I get this call from the studio, and I didn’t answer because I knew it was going to be bad. And they called [co-creators] David Kelley and Dean Lorey and said, “Sorry, it’s done. We tried.” And then an hour later they called back and said, “Hold on. Apparently John Stamos took a walk with Peter Rice? And Peter told us to try to find the money for it.”
Update – Unfortunately, it has been confirmed that “Big Shot” has been cancelled and will not be returning.
Both seasons of the show are available to stream now on Disney+.
Roger Palmer
Related Article
Disney+ Original “Big Shot” Cancelled After Two Seasons
“Big Shot” Season 1 To Air On FreeForm