The Comebacks
The Comebacks is a 2007 American sports parody comedy directed by Tom Brady, in which a chronically losing college football coach, Lambeau Fields (David Koechner), takes a final chance at redemption by leading a team of misfits at Heartland State University toward a championship game against the Lone Star State Unbeatables.1 It was produced by Tapestry Films and Fox Atomic and released in wide theatrical distribution on October 19, 2007.1
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Release | October 19, 2007 (wide theatrical); distributor Fox Atomic1 |
| Director / writers | Tom Brady; screenplay by Ed Yeager and Joey Gutierrez, with story credits for John Aboud, Michael Colton, Adam Jay Epstein, and Andrew Jacobson2 |
| Cast | David Koechner (Lambeau "Coach" Fields), Carl Weathers (Freddie Wiseman), Melora Hardin (Mrs. Fields), Matthew Lawrence (Lance Truman), Brooke Nevin (Michelle Fields)1 |
| Rating and runtime | PG-13, re-rated on appeal from an original R; 84 minutes theatrically3 • 4 |
| Box office | Estimated $20,000,000 budget; $5,554,594 opening weekend; $13,539,154 worldwide gross4 |
| Critical reception | 10% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer (31 reviews) and 33% on the Popcornmeter; Metascore of 25 on Metacritic1 • 5 |
| Alternate title | Released in some listings as "Sports Movie"4 |
Spoilers
Plot and premise
Lambeau Fields is presented as the worst coach in the history of college football. At the request of his admiring colleague Freddie Wiseman (Carl Weathers), he returns from retirement to coach the Comebacks, the team at Heartland State University, recruiting a roster of campus misfits that includes an egocentric receiver (Jackie Long), a quarterback (Matthew Lawrence) whose beer-swilling father (Nick Searcy) performs drag acts at truck stops, and a sideline rover named iPod (Jermaine Williams).1 • 6 Fields's unorthodox training methods improbably work, and the team reaches the playoffs against the Lone Star State Unbeatables, coached by Fields's onetime assistant.1 • 6 Subplots involve Fields's wife Barb (Melora Hardin), who fears he will again neglect the family, and his daughter Michelle (Brooke Nevin), who attracts two of his players.7
The film's name for its protagonist borrows the name of the Green Bay Packers' home stadium, Lambeau Field.3
Parody targets
The film spoofs inspirational sports movies, with reviewers identifying references to Rocky, Remember the Titans, Friday Night Lights, Field of Dreams, Rudy, Hoosiers, Stick It, Blue Crush, Radio, and others.6 • 8 It also parodies The Usual Suspects and, unusually for the genre, mocks Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, which is itself a sports parody; the Austin Chronicle's Josh Rosenblatt took this as a sign of the "pilfering, postmodern, post-ironic age of cinema."3 • 9 The film was marketed as being from the creators of Wedding Crashers.3
Reception and box office
The film was a critical failure. Its Rotten Tomatoes critics consensus calls it "full of groin-centric humor and tired sports clichés" and "poor even by parody movie standards."1 On Metacritic it scored 25, with 8 of 13 critic reviews negative, 4 mixed, and 1 positive; the Boston Globe's 63 was the highest score, while Variety gave 30 and called it "an exceptionally lame genre parody."5 Entertainment Weekly's reviewer ranked it below Daddy Day Camp, Baby Geniuses 2, and BloodRayne.9 Common criticisms were that the film treats a reference to another movie as a joke in itself and relies heavily on sexual and scatological humor.10 • 7
Against an estimated $20 million budget, the film opened to $5,554,594 in the United States and Canada and finished with $13,349,927 domestically and $13,539,154 worldwide, meaning international receipts accounted for only about 1.4 percent of the total.4 • 11
Versions and production details
The theatrical cut runs 84 minutes. An unrated home-video version is substantially longer at 1 hour 47 minutes, with several new scenes, reedited scenes, and different angles.4 The film was shot in California, with the closing football game filmed at California State University, Fullerton.4 Anthony B. Richmond was the cinematographer, Alan Edward Bell the editor, and Marc Fisichella the production designer.2
References
- The Comebacks, Rotten Tomatoes
- The Comebacks (2007), AFI Catalog
- Parents' Guide to The Comebacks, Common Sense Media
- The Comebacks (2007), IMDb
- The Comebacks critic reviews, Metacritic
- A sports comedy that doesn't bring its A game, Los Angeles Times (October 22, 2007)
- The Comebacks, Catholic News Service via Catholic Online (November 1, 2007)
- The Comebacks, Fandango
- The Comebacks, Movies Anywhere
- Review: 'The Comebacks' pass for sports spoof, San Francisco Chronicle (October 21, 2007)
- The Comebacks (2007), Box Office Mojo
Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Comedy and romantic films (individual works) › Comedies of 2007 to 2008 › Released in 2007
Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026
Your notes
© 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI. Free to use with credit under the Edgepedia Community License. Developers: read Edgepedia by API or MCP. Embed a reference card.