Champions trailer: Woody Harrelson coaches a crack team with disabilities in a new film from Bobby Farrelly

Focus Features is already training for March Madness with the studio’s Champions trailer. Designed to make you laugh, open your eyes, and warm your heart, Champions stars Woody Harrelson as a former minor league basketball coach. After a series of missteps, the court orders Harrelson’s Marcus to manage a team of players with intellectual disabilities. He soon realizes that despite his doubts, the team can go further than they ever imagined.

Bobby Farrelly (Shallow Hal, Fever Pitch, Hall Pass) directs Champions from a screenplay by Mark Rizzo (Gravity Falls, Green Eggs and Ham). Joining Harrelson for the inspirational sports feature are Ernie Hudson (Ghostbusters, The Crow, The Family Business), Kaitlin Olson (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Vacation), Cheech Marin (Born in East L.A., From Dusk Till Dawn), and Matt Cook (Being the Ricardos, True Blood), with Madison Tevlin, Joshua Felder, Kevin Ianucci, Ashton Gunning, Matthew Von Der Ahe, James Day Keith, Alex Hintz, Casey Metcalfe, Bradley Edens, and more.

Paul Brooks, Scott Niemeyer, and Jeremy Plager produce, with Woody Harrelson, Brad Kessell, Alexander Jooss, Álvaro Longoria, Javier Fesser, and Luis Manso executive producing.

In the Champions trailer, we witness Marcus’s downward spiral and firing from a prominent coaching position. Marcus lands in jail when things feel like they can’t get any worse. After hitting his version of rock bottom, a judge orders Marcus to use his unique coaching skills for community service. Marcus, behaving like an insensitive and inept human being, balks at managing a team of people with intellectual disabilities. Luckily, the gifted group is ready to prove they’ve got what it takes to go all the way and teach Marcus a thing or two about compassion in the process. No doubt Marcus will come around by the film’s end, though not before learning several valuable lessons about not judging a book by its cover.

What do you think about Focus Features’ Champions trailer? I’m not going to lie. I was getting choked up while watching the trailer. What? I’m a softie sometimes!