After 7½ years of work, director Tyree Dillihay spoke as if R&B group Tony! Toni! Tone!’s 1993 track “Anniversary” was playing in the background. But the soundtrack in his head wasn’t nostalgia — it was celebration.
“Do you know what today is? It’s premiere day,” Dillihay told ESPN.
Dillihay and his team at Sony Pictures started working on the newest basketball animated film “GOAT” in September 2018. The project, set to hit theaters Friday, is executive-produced by Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry, who also lends his voice to the movie alongside several notable past and present NBA and WNBA stars. The idea for the film came together shortly after Curry’s production company, Unanimous Media, closed a multiyear deal with Sony Pictures Entertainment.
“They were looking for something that had like an underdog spirit to it,” Dillihay said.
The movie follows the journey of a young goat, Will — played by actor Caleb McLaughlin — who has a dream of playing “roarball” in the big leagues with the biggest, fiercest animals in the world. But he is often overlooked due to being too small.
The storyline, appropriately, was inspired by how Curry, the 6-foot-2 12-time All-Star whose final signature sneaker with Under Armour will include an homage to the movie, changed what it means to be a small guard in today’s NBA.
“We kind of took [Curry’s journey as a basketball player] and infused it in our hero, Will, for the ultimate underdog story for the next generation,” Dillihay said.
Despite boasting a star-studded cast of hoopers, the question remains: What does a group of animals playing basketball look like?
According to Dillihay, it meant creating something that had never been done before.
“You take the sport of basketball and flip it on its head and turn the volume up to 11 and exaggerate it and call it roarball,” he said.
Dillihay said he picked Curry’s brain on how to make the movie’s basketball scenes as realistic as possible.
“We actually sat down one-on-one — no pun intended — and I listened to him talk about the game; different little details, footwork, hand placement, spacing, even momentum, pace,” Dillihay said.
In roarball, the rules are bent differently from a normal basketball game. The players — who are animals — can alternate between playing on two feet or on all fours. Players can also use any part of their bodies — from their hands to their claws, paws, hooves, tails or wings.
Playing environments look a lot different, too, blending fiction and nonfiction basketball together. Instead of a regulation-sized 94-foot court, the length is stretched to 120 yards to give animals space to stretch for full strides and is played on 15-foot rims.
Hardwood floors aren’t present. Depending on the region, animals can compete on red clay — which has living roots and vines designed to trip and ensnare players — or an Arctic region where the court is played on ice (if a polar bear smashes the ice, the game still must proceed).
The film includes real basketball plays, all of which were outlined by Curry’s former teammate, Andre Iguodala. According to Dillihay, Iguodala walked him and Adam Rosette, the co-director of GOAT, through the plays in the film.
“So not only are they realistic basketball plays, they might have come from a particular playbook that might have won four championships. I can’t confirm or deny, but each of those plays actually makes sense, not only from a basketball perspective but from a story perspective.”
Dillihay wants viewers to take away a simple message from the movie.
“Dream big. Your dreams have no ceiling, sky’s the limit,” he said. “You see Will’s relationship with not only his family, but his friends and the community — they put this battery in his back to say, ‘No, your circumstances and your conditions don’t define you.’
“If you work hard enough, you will exceed your goals. Look, I’m proof — I come from Inglewood, California. I’m not supposed to be here. I’m the fourth Black director in cinematic history to direct a major animated film. If that ain’t proof that dreams do come true, I don’t know what is.”
Dillihay also broke down each athlete’s character in the film, with some stars offering a scouting report of their own. Here’s a guide to every basketball player in “GOAT.”
Stephen Curry
Role: Lenny
Animal: Giraffe
Dillihay describes almost every athlete’s character as the complete opposite of their true, real-life selves. Curry is the shortest basketball player of the cast in real life, but he plays a character named Lenny who towers over any opponent in roarball.
“He is a physical presence, a towering defender. Sometimes focused, sometimes not but he’s a great teammate,” Curry said.
Dwyane Wade
Role: Rosette
Animal: Bull
Wade’s character, Rosette, makes many nods from his second stop in his playing career. According to Dillihay, the Bull is a nod to the Chicago Bulls, whom Wade played for for a season. However, Rosette was named after co-director Adam Rosette.
Dillihay took it a step further, saying Rosette also served as a nod to Bulls icon Derrick Rose.
Gabrielle Union, who is married to Wade and plays Jett Filmore in “GOAT,” says her character is the clear winner in a game of one-on-one against Rosette.
“It’s not even close!” Union said at the “GOAT” red-carpet premiere.
Andre Iguodala
Role: Iggy the Ref
Animal: Zebra
As National Basketball Players Association president and a four-time NBA champion, Iguodala’s character changes his role on the court entirely. Instead of making the plays, he’s making the foul calls.
“He’s calling fouls and getting into arguments with the coach and all,” Dillihay said. “It’s funny to put somebody in a position where they’ve been on the other side of the table and now you bring them over to that other side.”
Role: Kouyate
Animal: Crocodile
As a four-time WNBA MVP — two of which she won consecutively (2024, 2025) — it was inevitable that Wilson would get her shine in the film. It was Dillihay’s mission. Wilson’s character was the film’s main adversary.
“We just wanted an antagonist that had great lines and good screen time so that A’ja could shine,” Dillihay said.
Role: Propp
Animal: Polar bear
According to Dillihay, Reese’s character is named after Sony Animation’s head of story, Keely Propp.
“You got a woman athlete that is played by a woman athlete which is also representing our womanhood,” Dillihay said.
While creating the film, Dillihay allowed athletes to ad-lib their own trash talk while recording. When he asked Reese for “a couple of lines that you say on the court when you talk-trash,” he recalls the Chicago Sky star excessively searching for specific instances before his mind was blown.
“She was like, ‘I don’t talk trash.’ and I was like ‘Whoa,'” Dillihay said. “Angel is such a sweetheart and trash talk is actually not in her DNA. … From the outside looking in, Angel is painted as the villain and she is far from it.”
Role: Daskas
Animal: Gorilla
Dillihay says that playing opposites for some characters was a must. With Love, the Utah Jazz forward who’s known as a nice guy, Dillihay made his character Daskas a trash talker.
ESPN’s Brianna Williams contributed to this report.