‘GOAT’: Daring to Stand Tall When You’re Built Small

From Sony Pictures Animation comes GOAT, an original action-comedy set in an all-animal world where the smallest athlete on the court dreams of playing with the “bigs.” The latest film from the studio behind Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and the artists who made KPop Demon Hunters is directed by Tyree Dillihay, co-directed by Adam Rosette, and produced by Michelle Raimo Kouyate, Rodney Rothman and Adam Rosenberg of Modern Magic, and Four-time NBA champion Stephen Curry and Erick Peyton of Unanimous Media. Rick Mischel and Fonda Snyder are executive producers; David Schulenburg and Keith Luczywo are co-producers.

GOAT stars Caleb McLaughlin as Will Harris, Gabrielle Union as Jett Fillmore, Nicola Coughlan as Olivia Burke, Nick Kroll as Modo Olachenko, David Harbour as Archie Everhardt, and Curry as Lenny Williamson. The voice cast also includes Aaron Pierre, Patton Oswalt, Jenifer Lewis, Jennifer Hudson, Jelly Roll, Ayesha Curry, Andrew Santino, Bobby Lee, Sherry Cola, and Eduardo Franco.

The film, which opens in theaters today, February 13, follows Will, a determined young goat who earns a shot at professional “Roarball,” a high-intensity, co-ed sport dominated by the fastest and fiercest animals in the league. Blending basketball culture, music, fashion and immersive animation, the filmmakers brought their “A” game to deliver an underdog story rooted in both spectacle and heart.

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The idea that would become GOAT began with a deceptively simple premise: an underdog sports story set in an all-animal world. The original inspiration came from “Farm Team” a chapter in Chris Tougas’ book of one-page illustrated stories entitled “Funky Dunks. “Fonda [Snyder] had the idea of taking that chapter and developing a full feature film pitch just from an idea of animals as basketball players,” says Mischel. “She and I worked together on the story and that became the pitch to Sony Pictures Animation.”

Snyder adds, “At the same time, my son read the treatment and suggested that Stephen Curry should be involved as he is the IRL GOAT! It was utter synchronicity when Stephen signed an overall deal with Sony and was approached with the brilliant Tyree [Dillihay] to come aboard officially with his own take on the story.”

For Dillihay, his early take quickly expanded beyond “B-Ball” homage into a fully realized universe - one where roarball, a brawny, explosive evolution of basketball, becomes both spectacle and metaphor.

“In 2018, the general idea was an underdog sports movie populated by animals in an all-animal world,” the director explains. But even in those early conversations, the development team resisted the obvious path. They were not interested in simply substituting animals for humans in a familiar sports template. The question became more ambitious: what would the sport itself look like if the fastest, fiercest, and most ferocious creatures were the ones competing?”

“What if this animal world played a sport like NBA basketball, but you called it roarball,” Dillihay continues, “where the fastest, fiercest, most ferocious alpha animals compete in crazy biomes on two feet - all for the dream big of it all?” That phrase - “dream big” - ultimately became the emotional anchor of the film: not simply a tagline but a story mandate.

For co-director Adam Rosette, the creative breakthrough came when the filmmakers reframed the narrative stakes. “If it’s just winning, it’s just another sports movie,” he says. “Spectacle alone would not carry the story. What’s the relatability? How do you make this about more than just winning a game?” The goal became to build a film that could thrill sports fans while still working for viewers drawn primarily to character, comedy, and emotion.

The answer to their story development journey emerged through Will, the undersized goat who earns a chance to compete professionally for his home team, the Vineland Thorns. His ambition is not rooted in ego but in validation. “He wants to prove his mom right,” Rosette says. That emotional pivot elevated roarball beyond competition. Victory becomes symbolic - less about domination than proving he belongs - and much of the pressure Will feels comes from within.

Producer Michelle Raimo Kouyate sees that framing as central to the film’s accessibility. “You might be the small guy, or the odd guy, or the weird girl, but if you have faith in yourself, you’ll find your lane,” she notes. In that sense, the all-animal world magnifies human anxieties about belonging and self-worth. Will is not just smaller than his competition; he is trying to convince himself he deserves to be there at all.

Basketball culture infuses the film’s texture. Dillihay and Rosette are longtime fans, and their enthusiasm surfaces in choreography, pacing, and arena atmosphere. “We have such a love letter to basketball that we tried to put up on the screen,” Rosette says. References appear in crossover moves, in sneaker aesthetics, in the cadence of competition itself - and in the way arenas feel like cultural events, not simply sporting venues.

At the same time, the filmmakers worked to ensure roarball would not alienate audiences unfamiliar with the sport. “Even if you don’t love the sport, there’s something for everybody here,” Rosette notes. The underdog narrative remains universal, and the film’s emotional engine is built around belief, belonging and resilience - not a requirement that the audience understand the finer points of basketball.

Roarball’s league identity was also shaped through visual storytelling rather than exposition. Show it, don’t say, as they say. Arena lighting cues, player entrances, and uniform silhouettes communicate hierarchy and personality instantly. The sport exists not just as competition but as shared spectacle - something fans debate, celebrate and internalize as culture.

In the film, roarball unfolds across oversized courts embedded within volatile biomes - lava fissures splitting the ground beneath pounding hooves, vines erupting from sidelines, terrain cracking and reforming under force. These environments are not static backdrops; they behave as active participants in gameplay. The “arena” is not a neutral stage. It is a living system that reacts to impact, momentum, and rhythm.

Each biome was designed with its own internal physical logic. Lava responds to impact. Vegetation shifts under pressure. Rather than constructing a conventional sports space and placing fantastical dressing on top, the filmmakers envisioned courts as ecosystems with their own rules - places where the environment can heighten tension and amplify risk.

In practical gameplay terms, each biome subtly altered strategy and movement. Heavier players might trigger deeper fissures in lava courts, while more agile species could exploit shifting ground for leaping advantage. The arenas were conceived not as interchangeable backdrops but as strategic characters themselves that altered tempo, pacing and risk. This required close coordination between layout, animation, and effects to ensure these critical environments played a central – rather than decorative - role in the story.

To support that ambition, the team leaned heavily into Unreal Engine during development and layout. The program’s real-time capabilities allowed directors to stage plays, experiment with camera placement and test environmental reactions simultaneously. Instead of imagining how a sequence might read once fully rendered, they could evaluate spatial relationships and pacing in context - and make decisions while the action still felt “live,” rather than committing to a single version too early.

Dillihay notes that the ability to explore in real time changed how scenes evolved. Unreal became a sandbox for iteration. Camera moves could be tested against shifting terrain. Multi-character collisions could be blocked and re-blocked. Environmental intensity could be dialed up or down before final animation polish. With dozens of animal athletes occupying the frame during peak sequences, maintaining clarity required choreography that served both sports logic and storytelling clearness.

Rosette reinforces that priority. “Even when things get big, you still need to understand what the character is feeling,” he says. High-angle sweeps and kinetic tracking shots were balanced with intimate framing, ensuring Will’s doubt or resolve remained visible amid chaos. The camera language had to shift fluidly between “you are inside the match” immersion and “you are inside the character” intimacy.

“You get to build a world from scratch,” Dillihay says. That world had to feel internally consistent while sustaining heightened spectacle. Biome by biome, play by play, roarball operates as athletic battleground and emotional amplifier. It’s also a stage for identity: how a character moves within a space can reveal how they see themselves inside it.

The real-time workflow also supported a constant tug-of-war between spectacle and clarity. Because multiple players and background elements are active in nearly every major play, the creative team had to decide what the audience should be focused on at any given moment - ball position, a character’s line of sight, a looming hazard, or a split-second choice that reveals intent. Iteration allowed them to test whether a sequence felt exhilarating or unreadable, then adjust accordingly before committing to final animation.

Just as importantly, the filmmakers could explore how the arena itself shapes emotion. A court that breaks apart at the wrong moment can turn player confidence into panic. Pressure building in the very ground itself becomes a visual metaphor for the pressure building inside a character. Those choices work only if the audience still understands the play. So, the spectacle is tuned not just for excitement, but for narrative comprehension.

There are many different types of animals in GOAT, which just adds to the narrative and visual complexity. A goat competing alongside leopards, rhinos and ostriches creates natural differences in scale, speed, and weight. Performance credibility requires that contact, momentum, and balance feel species-specific without tipping into caricature.

“The intention was to make these characters feel real within the animation medium,” Dillihay says. Exaggerated anatomy provided opportunity, but subtle, nuanced athletic performance grounded the storytelling. Facial expression, posture, and simple movement were carefully balanced, especially in moments where Will’s confidence wavers or returns. The film needed to support high-energy play without flattening characters into athletic “types.”

Scene clutter and frenzy is ultimately a design problem, which posed a particular challenge on a film with intense action involving many bodies, many directions, and cascading court hazards. That challenge affects staging, camera placement, and timing. The directors’ ability to test scene composition early helped decide where the audience’s eye should go - and to avoid sequences that look impressive but feel visually confusing.

Lighting further reinforced the various biome identities. A lava courts cast aggressive, heated flickering; a vegetative arena introduced filtered greens and moving shadows. Lighting design supported emotional beats - stepping into shadow signaling hesitation, emerging into brightness amplifying triumph - while also doing the practical work of separating characters from environment so the action feels first and foremost.

Beyond the court, the city around roarball needed to feel coherent: not just “a place where games happen,” but a world shaped by that sport’s presence and visual brand and identity. Vineland’s sense of identity lives in how the public responds to roarball - how fans carry it, talk about it, and turn it into shared language. That cultural layer helps justify why a goat like Will would build his life around the dream of competing.

Production design extended this influence into Vineland itself. Neighborhood courts echo arena layouts, storefronts display team colors and public spaces reflect the sport’s impact on the local economy and culture. The city does not merely host roarball - it is shaped by it, reinforcing the scale of Will’s ambition and the weight of his goal.

For Raimo Kouyate, harnessing the studio’s incredibly animation production technology never took priority over telling an emotional and believable story. “It’s not about showing off the technology,” she says. “It’s about serving the story.” That philosophy guided decisions about escalation and restraint: when to make roarball feel like a controlled storm, and when to quiet everything down so a character’s thoughts and feelings can be heard.

The aging MVP Jett Fillmore embodies that emotional complexity. “She’s the symbol of the aging athlete,” Raimo Kouyate says. Decorated yet still chasing a championship, Jett grapples with vulnerability and expectation. Her arc mirrors Will’s in reverse - while he battles imposter syndrome as a newcomer, she wrestles with legacy, relevance, and fragile ego.

This duality makes the story more than just an underdog’s journey. Will’s arc is fueled by possibility. Jett’s is shaped by consequence - by what it costs to compete long enough that the world begins questioning whether you still belong. That tension expands the story beyond ambition into questions of endurance and relevance - realities every athlete eventually confronts.

The film also integrates commentary on public perception. “We live in a world where people only see the highlights,” Rosette says. Social media culture shapes athletic identity, swiftly and brutally magnifying triumph and misstep alike. For Will, visibility becomes both opportunity and pressure. For Jett, that often harsh digital scrutiny intensifies questions about longevity, turning every moment into an argument for or against her continued place at the top.

Rather than just treating social media for laughs, the film uses it as a continual narrative pressure valve. Highlight culture arbitrarily and artificially elevates players and plays - and that distortion can warp how athletes view themselves. It’s one more arena Will must learn to play in, even as he tries to keep his purpose anchored in something more stable than approval.

Yet beneath spectacle and social commentary, GOAT remains grounded in family. Dillihay describes the opening sequence - young Will attending his first roarball game with his mother - as deeply personal. “That’s a very core memory for a child,” he says. “In that moment he found purpose.” The sheer overload of experiencing the arena becomes central to Will’s entire psyche, tying his future directly to a critical moment with his mom of connection and encouragement.

Rosette connects that drive to gratitude. Reflecting on his own mother’s sacrifices, he frames Will’s ambition as more than self-actualization. “He wants to win for more than himself,” Rosette says. “He wants to win for her.” That emotional pillar changes how the audience sees the film’s central competition: not as a journey to winning, but as a journey to honoring belief and commitment - the kind of belief that can shape a child’s life.

Raimo Kouyate shares that the message extends beyond sports. “It’s not just about aiming high in sports,” she says. “It represents what it’s like to have a dream.” In GOAT, Vineland’s community celebrates perseverance, and Will’s journey becomes a lens on how communities nurture - or challenge - the people who dare to believe.

Even when Will falters, the story then embodies his unwavering resilience. Regardless of his outcomes on the court, Will’s belief isn’t shaken. His confidence and persistence are never shown to be easy; it’s built through setbacks, doubt, and the choice to keep pushing forward.

In the end, GOAT shows competition as a shared experience rather than a solitary climb. Teammates trust one another. A city rallies behind its own. A mother’s voice echoes faith despite setbacks. Will’s journey makes the case that the smallest voice can carry the loudest roar.

Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.