Soccer has had plenty of TV and movie adaptations in recent years. Filmmakers have produced everything from historic fiction (The English Game), thrilling documentaries (Diego Maradona, Sunderland ’Til I Die and Amazon’s All Or Nothing series) and even heartfelt comedies (Ted Lasso). What we haven’t seen is a sci-fi soccer movie. Until now.
Cosmoball, released in November in Russia and set for a 2021 release in the U.S., looks like the perfect combination of soccer, science fiction and those superhero movies DC and Marvel can’t seem to make enough of.
“We’re about to go play football with what’s essentially a nuclear bomb and everyone else thinks this is just a game, is that right?”
“Pretty much it, yeah.”
Let’s go ahead and add this to the list of the best soccer movies coming out in 2021.
Cosmoball is based on an animated series from Europe called Galactik Football. Set in a post-apocalyptic world, humanity is apparently still obsessed with the beautiful game, albeit in a slightly different form.
In truth, this sci-fi soccer movie looks more like Blitzball from Final Fantasy X. Sadly, there’s no sign of FFX’s Wakka, but there is a character who looks a whole heckuva lot like an Asari from Mass Effect and a bunch of other interesting-looking aliens.
As far as we can tell, the movie is supposed to be released at some point in 2021 in the U.S., though we couldn’t find any official release date. The original movie is in Russian (hence Cosmoball instead of Astroball), so it will be dubbed into English. And it might also go by the name of Goalkeeper of the Galaxy, which seems like a direct rip off of Guardians of the Galaxy.
Regardless of when you might be able to see it, Cosmoball certainly looks like it’ll be more interesting than The English Game. We can only hope it’ll be half as delightful as Ted Lasso.
