If you build it, they will come -- and if you like a movie, sooner or later they will reboot it. After the classic Kevin Costner movie Field of Dreams inspired a real-life MLB game last week, streaming service Peacock is going to bat with a new TV version from one of the creators behind The Office and The Good Place.
There's been renewed interest in the much loved 1989 movie since a Major League Baseball game took place at the farm where it was filmed 30 years ago. On Aug. 12 nearly 8,000 people -- including Costner himself -- watched the Chicago White Sox beat the New York Yankees 9-8 after the game was postponed from 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. Peacock is swinging for the fences by ordering the TV version straight-to-series, rather than cautiously stopping at first base with a pilot episode.
Mike Schur seems like a safe pair of hands, although the material may be a little different from his usual speciality: As well as creating The Good Place, Schur co-created sitcoms Parks and Recreation and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. The original Field of Dreams, meanwhile, was an emotional and fantasy-inflected story (with a bunch of funny lines). You can watch it on Peacock now if you need a reminder.
Based on the novel Shoeless Joe by W. P. Kinsella, the Oscar-nominated Field of Dreams was written and directed by Phil Alden Robinson. Costner played a farmer who hears voices in his head telling him to plow his cornfield into a baseball diamond, attracting the spirits of baseball players involved in World Series match-fixing in the infamous 1919 Black Sox scandal.
Costner emerged from the cornfield to deliver a spine-tingling intro to the 2021 Field of Dreams game, below.
MLB has promised a return to Iowa in 2022. Reports say the Cincinnati Reds will play the Chicago Cubs.
