Photo: Ella Olsson via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0, cropped.
The Game Changers has finally had its worldwide release. The plant-based sports documentary screened in more than 1,000 theaters around the world in a one-night global event on Monday, September 16, and it comes to iTunes on October 1 in the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand.
The film follows James Wilks, the UFC fighter turned Special Forces trainer, as he looks into plant-based diets while recovering from an injury. Along the way he meets ultrarunner Scott Jurek, German strongman Patrik Baboumian, boxer Bryant Jennings, Olympic cyclist Dotsie Bausch, weightlifter Kendrick Farris and NFL players including Derrick Morgan, with his wife, chef Charity Morgan. Lewis Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger appear too. It's directed by Louie Psihoyos, who made the Oscar-winning The Cove.
This is a new cut of the film that premiered at Sundance in January 2018. It has extra footage, and new executive producers Jackie Chan, Chris Paul, Novak Djokovic and Lewis Hamilton join James Cameron and Arnold Schwarzenegger on the credits.
Djokovic explained why he signed up in July, as he chased his fifth Wimbledon title. He told the Press Association:
It is about how this diet affects the world, not just personal health, but also sustainability, ecology, animals. This is what I care about so I'm really privileged to be part of that team.
The aim is simple: kill off the myth that you need animal products to perform at the highest level. Given the year its stars have had, that's not a hard case to make.
When the first cut premiered we called it the most important movie of 2018. Since then Djokovic has saved two championship points to beat Federer at Wimbledon, Hamilton has won a record sixth British Grand Prix, and Chris Paul has gone plant-based. And Baboumian's line has never been truer: my strength needs no victims.
Grab some popcorn. The plant-based revolution is on the big screen.