Gridiron Gang

Sadly, after 20 years at Camp Kilpatrick, the remarkable football program featured in the film was cancelled in 2014 following the results of a study on its long-term benefits, even though it had helped send multiple former Mustang players to college.

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In a practice scene, Dwayne Johnson can be seen wearing number 94, the same number he wore at Miami Hurricanes, as a tribute to his college career.

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Although he is portrayed as the film's antagonist, the real Paul Higa was one of the program's biggest advocates.

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One of the players at Barrington had the surname Plank. Kevin Plank is the founder and CEO of Under Armour. Every uniform worn by the team in this film was sponsored by Under Armour.

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It is based on the true story of a football team at a juvenile detention center that went on to win a state championship. A film crew followed the team, and the footage became a TV documentary in 1993. After it aired on television, the creators received major offers from a studio to turn it into a feature film, but for various reasons it took more than twelve years to bring it to the big screen as a feature.

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With this film, Sony became the first studio to release ten films that opened at number one in box office revenue within a single year. The previous record of nine had also been set by Sony in 2003 with the release of Something's Gotta Give (2003).

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The Mustang logo is the same as the running horse of the Calgary Stampeders of the Canadian Football League, the team Dwayne Johnson had previously tried out for as a defensive tackle in 1995. The Stampeders first used this logo when Metro Ford became its main sponsor and promoted the Ford Mustang, which also bears the same logo.

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Sylvester Stallone was at one point interested in playing Coach Porter.

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Nicolas Cage and Bruce Willis stated they were interested in playing Sean Porter before the role went to Dwayne Johnson.

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