Sports films are again, child. For a stretch within the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, and even ’00s, sports movies have been inescapable. Beginning with Rocky, feel-good tales of triumph grew to become dependable field workplace juggernauts. Motivational underdog sagas attracted the entire household. And whether or not the coach of a sports activities staff was inspirational (Remember the Titans) or irascible (A League of Their Own), he was often performed by a giant film star (Denzel Washington or Tom Hanks—ever heard of them?).

Commercially profitable films about athletes usually doubled as Oscar bait: Jerry Maguire, The Blindside, and Seabiscuit all revamped $100 million and scored Academy Award nominations. And then there was your complete subgenre poking enjoyable on the self-seriousness of sports activities films—Caddy Shack, Dodgeball, Talladega Nights. Let’s not neglect in regards to the romantic sports activities films—Bull Durham, Bend it Like Beckham, Fever Pitch—or the tragic sports activities films—Million Dollar Baby, Foxcatcher, Rudy.

But someplace on the flip aspect of The Blind Side, the sports activities film all however disappeared. Sure, we’d get a film like Creed or Moneyball each few years. But these have been the exceptions. Like the rom-com and the grownup drama, the sports activities film belonged to a category of mid-budget movie that appeared destined to languish on the heap of detritus left behind after superheroes smashed up the box office. Iron Man kicked off the MCU in 2008 and by 2012 when The Avengers debuted, sports activities films took a backseat. Disney (which owns Marvel) launched the Jon Hamm baseball flick Million Dollar Arm in 2014, a film that had such a disappointing field workplace return that it appeared to scare the studio that gave us Air Bud, The Mighty Ducks, and Miracle from placing related tales in theaters indefinitely.

The 2010s marked a nadir for the style. In their grasping pursuit of movies that includes inexplicably jacked characters in tights who use all that bodily energy to do little however shoot laser beams at each other to save lots of the multiverse, studios put aside the all too human athletes who use their energy to realize a lot humbler objectives. Studios devoted bigger and bigger budgets to comedian ebook films and provided smaller sums to sports activities movies.

But change is within the air. This yr’s field workplace has been dominated by athletes as a lot as superheroes. As Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and Shazam: Fury of the Gods floundered on the field workplace, Creed III and 80 for Brady proved to be first-quarter hits. Ahead of its launch this week, Ben Affleck’s Air has scored a 99% on Rotten Tomatoes and generated buzz which will simply propel its director-star by awards season. Sure, Air, a film a few billion-dollar firm designing a shoe, is extra sports-adjacent than a few of these different titles. But the cheers on the compulsory montage of Michael Jordan’s careers highs and lows in my screening of the movie would appear to point that individuals have been there to see MJ as much as Matt Damon.

And the remainder of the yr is chock-full of films about opponents: Zendaya has a sports activities film popping out (tennis). So do Michael Fassbender (soccer) and Adam Driver (racing). This may be the yr of the sports activities film’s superb return.

How did we get right here?

Brendan Hunt, Cristo Fernández and Jason Sudeikis in “Ted Lasso”

Apple TV+

How to elucidate this sudden course change for Hollywood? Perhaps throughout the pandemic, studio executives tuned into Netflix’s gigantic hit of a docuseries The Last Dance about Jordan’s historic run with the Chicago Bulls and remembered that sports activities are compelling and dramatic and filled with delicious trash talk. (We know for a indisputable fact that Air screenwriter Alex Convery actually got the idea for Air whereas watching the fifth episode of The Last Dance.) Those identical executives may have tuned into one other large pandemic hit, Apple TV+’s soccer dramedy Ted Lasso, and remembered that the wins and losses of sports activities operate as fairly heartwarming metaphor for the human situation. It might be that, earlier than all of the Will Smith drama, King Richard reminded Hollywood that the Oscars love a sports activities film.

Read More: How Air Tells the True Story of Michael Jordan’s Nike Shoe Deal

But a number of new sports activities films have been in improvement for years, lengthy earlier than Jason Sudeikis grew his Ted Lasso mustache. So possibly, simply possibly, filmmakers sensed we have been getting sick of superheroes and wished our regular, run-of-the-mill heroes again. Filmmakers decided to deliver again sports activities films have contorted them to suit into the brand new Hollywood panorama the place there’s little room for something however middle-brow streaming reveals and comedian ebook films. And they discovered three primary methods to do that: by cloaking a brand new story in outdated IP, discovering a streamer with the ambition to make films like they used to, or trotting out the outdated Academy Awards playbook.

Path 1: The tangential franchise

Michael B. Jordan stars as Adonis Creed in Creed III

Eli Ade—Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures

As writer-director Ryan Coogler told me way back in 2015, the unique Creed movie was born from the love for the Rocky franchise that he shared together with his father. But on condition that studios solely appear to greenlight sequels and spinoffs nowadays, one can’t assist however ponder whether a studio would have ever greenlit an unique boxing film from Coogler with none ties to a identified cinematic hero. Three films in, Creed III has turn out to be what we would name a tangential franchise. Technically, it nonetheless belongs to the Rocky universe however has distanced itself so removed from the unique IP that Sylvester Stallone doesn’t seem within the movie, and Creed III by no means really performs the long-lasting Rocky theme tune. And but Creed III nonetheless set a franchise field workplace file its opening weekend. At this level Adonis Creed doesn’t want Rocky Balboa in his nook so as to succeed.

We may additionally slate the upcoming Gran Turismo, out Aug. 11, into the “tangential franchise” class because it’s constructing off the success of the online game of the identical title. It has a weird spon-con sounding premise: It’s centered on a child who turns into a race automobile driver after profitable a Nissan-sponsored online game competitors (presumably on a Sony Playstation on condition that the movie is being made by Sony). But it stars David Harbour and Orlando Bloom, and Neill Blomkamp, who made the superb District 9, is directing it.

Could different new franchises blossom from the dusty stays of outdated ones? Perhaps. Given studios’ ongoing reliance on acquainted tales and characters, it’s frankly mind-boggling we haven’t gotten more modern updates like Creed.

Path 2: The streamer technique

Juancho Hernangomez as Bo Cruz and Adam Sandler as Stanley Sugerman in Hustle.

Scott Yamano/Netflix—© 2022 Netflix, Inc.

OK, that’s not fully true. Studios are rebooting and sequelizing a variety of sports activities films. They simply wind up as tv reveals on streaming companies. A League of Their Own, Mighty Ducks, and White Men Can’t Jump all not too long ago bought tv therapies (or quickly will).

But streamers appear keen to often put money into unique sports activities movies that harken again to an period when the style may discover each important and business success. In Netflix’s Hustle Adam Sandler performs an NBA expertise scout who takes a participant below his wing earlier than the draft. Not solely did it feature legitimate NBA stars (who made for surprisingly good actors), nevertheless it bought sufficient buzz that it earned Sandler a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination. Netflix additionally bought High Flying Bird, a Steven Soderbergh basketball drama shot fully on an iPhone that bought awards consideration.

I think that Ben Affleck and Matt Damon would take umbrage with the concept that Air, the story in regards to the creation of the Air Jordan shoe, is primarily a streaming title. In truth, it’s the primary film from Amazon Studios to get a large theatrical launch since 2019. But Amazon purchased that film as a result of it’s precisely the form of inspirational film that households will watch again and again at residence.

Path 3: The Oscar play

Zendaya attends the 94th Annual Academy Awards at Hollywood and Highland on March 27, 2022 in Hollywood, California

David Livingston—Getty Images

The Academy Awards have an extended historical past of awarding sports activities films the highest prize: Chariots of Fire, Rocky, and Million Dollar Baby received Best Picture. The Hustler, Raging Bull, Jerry Maguire, The Blind Side, and The Fighter have all taken residence statues too. Just final yr King Richard lastly received Will Smith his Oscar.

Lately, the Academy has been loving feel-good movies about household: Those themes are about the one commonality shared between the final two Best Picture winners, CODA and Everything Everywhere All At Once. And right here’s the factor about sports activities films: They’re usually feel-good tales of triumph that are inclined to heart on both literal households or a staff that acts like a household.

Read More: Creed III Is the Kind of Movie the Big Screen Was Made For

And subsequent yr might show essentially the most sports-centric Oscar ceremony ever. It appears to be the topic du jour for Oscar-winning or Oscar-nominated administrators. Affleck, who helmed Best Picture winner Argo, has Air; Taika Waititi, who bought a nod for Jojo Rabbit, is directing Michael Fassbender within the soccer film Next Goal Wins; Luca Guadagnino, who broke onto the awards circuit with Call Me By Your Name, is helming a Zendaya tennis movie known as Challengers; and Michael Mann, nominated for The Insider, is releasing the racing movie Ferrari starring Adam Driver.

We’ll have to attend some months to tally up the field workplace totals and awards hauls to see what the longer term might maintain. But for now, not less than, we will revel within the glory of these sweaty coaching montages and slow-motion game-winning pictures.

Write to Eliana Dockterman at eliana.dockterman@time.com.