By Erick Pessôa

Babe Ruth. The Atlanta Braves. The Yankees. The Bambino Curse. I even know what a curveball is.

Why?

Because of… (now say it with a Vin Diesel accent) “the movies.”

When I was a kid in Brazil, a place where futebol reigns and baseball is a complete mystery, I still found myself mesmerized by baseball stories on screen. I watched Robert Redford light up the stadium in The Natural (1984), Kevin Costner build a magical field in Field of Dreams (1989), and Tom Hanks yell “There’s no crying in baseball!” in A League of Their Own (1992). I even laughed at Major League (1989) without knowing a single rule of the game.

Those films weren’t about understanding baseball. As a matter of fact, I only recalled that Field of Dreams was about baseball when I rewatched it recently. I had in my mind the “build it and they will come” quote and didn’t even remember the sport itself.

Those movies mentioned above were about dreams, second chances, ghosts, love, and the American spirit. Baseball was just the backdrop. But it worked. It pulled me in and made me curious about this strange, slow game that wasn’t even on our TV channels.

And then one day… they were gone.

Not the movies themselves, but the baseball film genre. It disappeared. Especially internationally.
So, what happened?

The Disappearance of Baseball Films: A Global Strikeout

Let’s get this out of the way: I’m not the only one who noticed the absence. There hasn’t been a major Hollywood baseball film in years, certainly not one with a global release or strong international marketing. As film critic Noah Gittell points out, “The once-reliable stream of baseball films has slowed to a trickle”, and studios now rarely even bother to release them internationally [Gittell, The Guardian, 2022].

Back in the 1980s and 90s, there was a boom. Field of Dreams, Bull Durham (1988), The Sandlot (1993), A League of Their Own. They were part of the cultural export machine and reached distant markets like Brazil. Hollywood wasn’t just selling popcorn entertainment; it was spreading Americana. And I was one of the people buying it.

But those films were primarily made for American audiences, and yet, miraculously, they still made it to Brazil, France, the UK, wherever. Today, Hollywood has shifted its strategy. It’s no longer just about domestic success.

Follow the Money (Spoiler: It’s Not in Iowa)

The key reason for this change? The globalization of the box office. Today, most of Hollywood’s revenue comes from international markets, which represent about 70–75% of the total box office, according to the Motion Picture Association [MPA Theatrical & Home Entertainment Market Environment Report, 2023].

That shift changed everything. Studios now ask: Will this movie work in China? In Europe? In Latin America? If the answer is “meh,” then the film probably won’t get made.

The focus on pleasing specific markets abroad became evident. Don’t get me started on “pseudo-localization,” especially with the Chinese market,  like Iron Man 3 did with an extra scene just for China.

And baseball? It’s an American sport. Even though countries like Japan, South Korea, and the Dominican Republic have passionate baseball fans, the sport isn’t global enough to justify big-budget releases. A baseball movie just doesn’t have the same draw as, say, a Marvel film or a global action franchise.

In fact, look at Moneyball (2011), one of the last truly great baseball films. It starred Brad Pitt, had Oscar buzz, and still made only one-third of its box office overseas;  $34 million internationally out of a $75 million total [Box Office Mojo, 2011].

The Jackie Robinson biopic 42 (2013) was a powerful story about race, courage, and history, but most of its revenue came from the U.S. again [Box Office Mojo, 2013]. Studios took note. Baseball doesn’t really translate to other cultures.

From Baseball Diamonds to Cinematic Universes

There’s another factor too: the rise of franchises. Studios now invest in movies that can be sequels, spin-offs, or part of a cinematic universe. And let’s be honest, baseball movies don’t franchise well.

As producer Jerry Bruckheimer said in Sports Business Journal, “The audience hasn’t supported sports films [at the box office]… they’re very hard to get made.” That applies even more to niche sports like baseball [SBJ, 2022].

So while we get multiple Fast & Furious entries and interconnected superhero worlds, films about real people and real sports, especially ones tied to a single nation’s culture,  get sidelined.

Hollywood’s Shift Away from Cultural Specificity

There’s something sad about this. Not just because a genre was lost, but because we lost the chance of seeing a piece of American cultural storytelling on the big screen.

Baseball movies weren’t just about baseball. They were about fathers and sons, hopes and regrets, America’s complicated past. They carried a quiet kind of mythmaking. And for international viewers like me, they offered a window into a world I didn’t know. A real cultural curiosity.

Now, Hollywood wants “global appeal.” As The Guardian put it, movies “rooted too strongly in American culture stand less chance in the new globalised mainstream” [The Guardian, 2012].

So they go broader. Bigger. Louder. And baseball films, slow, poetic, nostalgic,  don’t fit that model.

Streaming: A New Hope?

That said, not all is lost. Streaming has become a refuge for the baseball film and other niche genres. Take Amazon’s A League of Their Own (2022) series. Or the Adam Sandler basketball film Hustle (2022) on Netflix.

Producers like Mark Ciardi (who made The Rookie and Miracle) now pitch sports stories straight to streamers, because audiences are still interested. The issue is: they just don’t want to pay for a cinema ticket [SBJ, 2022].

So maybe baseball hasn’t disappeared. It’s just playing in a different league now, playing on smaller screens, in more intimate formats.

Final Thoughts from a Brazilian Cinephile

As a Brazilian, I still think it’s kind of magical that I know what first base is, or why Shoeless Joe matters. And I owe that not to ESPN, but to Kevin Costner and a cornfield.

Hollywood used to be this incredible engine for spreading its cultural DNA. Today, it feels more like it’s chasing the next billion-dollar hit than telling personal stories rooted in place and history.

I’m not saying bring back baseball movies for nostalgia’s sake. But I do think IB Film students and young filmmakers in general should ask:
What local stories are worth telling even if they don’t “travel”?

Because sometimes, the most meaningful stories are the ones that don’t need to.