NFL Network has recruited movie star Brad Pitt to narrate a new documentary America’s Game: 2009 New Orleans Saints. Pitt has long been active in charity efforts in the Gulf region, which as devastated after Hurricane Katrina five years ago. The NFL says Pitt was chosen to narrate the documentary “because of his humanitarian efforts in the gulf region.”
The doc, not surprisingly, looks at the 2009 season of the New Orleans Saints, as told by players Drew Brees and Jonathan Vilma and head coach Sean Payton.
The addition of Pitt brings some star power to the project, which when combined with the feel-good story of the Saints and New Orleans, could bring in viewers that may not otherwise have tuned in.
America’s Game: 2009 New Orleans Saints, will premiere Wednesday, September 8 at 9 PM ET.
The full press release, with more information about the doc, is available after the jump.
NFL NETWORK’S AMERICA’S GAME: 2009 NEW ORLEANS SAINTS NARRATED BY BRAD PITT DEBUTS WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 8 AT 9:00 PM ET
Head Coach Sean Payton, Jonathan Vilma and Drew Brees
Tell the Story of the Road to Super Bowl XLIV and What it Meant to New Orleans
BREES CHOOSES NEW ORLEANS AND LEADS SAINTS TO FIRST SUPER BOWL WIN
PAYTON TALKS ABOUT HIS GUTSY ON-SIDE KICK CALL IN THE SUPER BOWL
VILMA AND UNSUNG DEFENSE STOP THREE OF THE BEST QBs IN PLAYOFF VICTORIES
Why did Drew Brees choose to go to New Orleans? When did Sean Payton make the call for an on-side kick during the Super Bowl? The answers to these questions and much more will be unveiled when the inside story of the Saints remarkable Super Bowl-winning season is told by Drew Brees, Sean Payton and Jonathan Vilma on NFL Network’s newest episode of the NFL Films-produced Emmy award-winning series, America’s Game: 2009 New Orleans Saints.
Narrated by two-time Academy Award nominee Brad Pitt, America’s Game: 2009 New Orleans Saints debuts Wednesday, Sept. 8 at 9:00 PM ET, the night before the Saints kick off the 2010 NFL season against the Minnesota Vikings.
Super Bowl MVP Brees, linebacker Vilma and head coach Sean Payton recount their memories and inside stories about the Saints 2009 season that was capped off with the first Super Bowl win in franchise history. The one-hour America’s Game features exclusive video and sound of the Saints during team meetings, practices, games and inside the locker room leading up to and following Super Bowl XLIV.
Find out what Sean Payton did to make him think Brees would sign with Miami instead of New Orleans as a free agent, see previously unseen video from practice of the on-side kick that was successful in the Super Bowl, learn what pass in a commercial impressed Vilma about his quarterback and about the must-have item Payton never commands a sideline without.
Pitt, who has done extensive community work in New Orleans, lends his voice as narrator to America’s Game: 2009 New Orleans Saints to help tell the story of the season. Frustrated with the lack of progress in rebuilding the Lower 9th Ward, where thousands of homes were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, Pitt established the Make It Right Foundation to build 150 green, affordable, high-quality design homes in the New Orleans neighborhood.
Below is a sampling of quotes from America’s Game: 2009 New Orleans Saints:
“I felt like this is where I belong, to be a part of not only the rebuilding of an organization, but also a city and a region.” – QB Drew Brees on his decision to sign with New Orleans in 2006
“I’ve never to this day heard the Superdome louder than that moment. That’s when you knew that no matter who we were playing that day, they didn’t stand a chance.” – Brees on the 2006 win against Atlanta in the first home game following Hurricane Katrina
“It was magical. You could feel what that game meant and what it symbolized. New Orleans was coming back.” – Brees following the Atlanta win
“Somewhere between ‘Teenage Wasteland’ and ‘Pinball Wizard’, we decided that this was going to be the time to run this.” – Head Coach Sean Payton on halftime decision during Super Bowl XLIV to call the onside kick, “Ambush”
“You knew it was more than just us winning a game. All of New Orleans won this.” – LB Jonathan Vilma on winning the Super Bowl
“If we – as a team and as a city – can be world champions when nobody ever thought we could, then man, we can accomplish anything.” – Brees on winning the Super Bowl
America’s Game, which won an Emmy Award for best sports series, delves deep into the story behind the making of Super Bowl champions. Each episode is a 60-minute documentary (available in high definition) featuring key members of the winning team telling behind-the-scenes accounts from their championship season. With classic NFL Films action combined with news clips and photos, highlights from team radio broadcasts, footage from inside team meeting rooms, sideline audio and other exclusive features, America’s Game provides an epic and intimate portrait of championship teams, in one groundbreaking series.