Okay, this one is for you football fans or Star Wars fans…or both. Have you ever wondered what NFL games might look like if they were set in the Star Wars universe? Well, maybe not, but Disney has certainly been thinking about it!
©ESPN
ESPN, Lucasfilm, Disney, and the NFL have come together to create technology that will turn the 2027 Super Bowl game into a game with Star Wars characters for the first time ever. No, really!
Now, Disney has turned football games into animated versions with its other properties before, like Toy Story and Monsters, Inc. But this will be the first time a Super Bowl game will get animated in real time, and it’s the first time Disney has done this with Star Wars. This will be a real-time animated alternate telecast of Super Bowl LXI featuring Star Wars characters on February 14th on Disney+ and the ESPN app, as well as on Disney Channel and Disney XD. It will even feature Anthony Daniels returning to voice C-3PO. So, yeah, this is a pretty big deal!
©Disney
Star Wars Funday Football will be presented alongside the traditional game telecast with Joe Buck, Troy Aikman, Lisa Salters, and Laura Rutledge on ESPN, ABC, and Disney+. ESPN will also have a Spanish-language telecast on Disney+ and ESPN Deportes. The Star Wars animated telecast, though, will recreate EVERY SINGLE PLAY in real time, transforming players into animated Star Wars avatars, while Star Wars characters sub during special moments. There will also be a TON of Easter eggs throughout the game.
©Lucasfilm
Sony’s Beyond Sports will be providing the data visualization technology that transforms live gameplay into animation in real time. It uses player tracking data from the NFL’s Next Gen Stats and Sony’s Hawk-Eye Innovations optical tracking. Very cool, right? It’s a whole new way to watch the Super Bowl.
©Disney
This is all part of how Disney plans to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Star Wars, but there’s more. Starting on October 20th, ESPN’s SC+ on Disney+ will feature Star Wars “Hyperspace Highlights” from Monday Night Football. On October 26th, the series will have an animated Darth Vader interviewing an NFL player participating in Monday Night Football that night. Star Wars AND football? What could be more fun?
We’ll keep an eye out for more Disney news, so stay tuned to DFB for more.
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Which version of the Super Bowl will you be watching in 2027? Let us know in the comments!
