Bukayo Saka is having an epic year. In just this past month, the English soccer star led Arsenal to its first Premier League title in more than 20 years, then played in a UEFA Champions League final (where the team lost to Paris Saint-Germain on penalties). Next, he’ll lead England into the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
Now, a new documentary film directed by the Emmy-award winner Robert Alexander shines another spotlight on the 24-year-old. Bukayo Saka: The Time is Now brings Saka together with an Arsenal club legend, Thierry Henry, for a candid conversation about what it takes to perform at the highest level, the pressure, the resilience required, while making sure still to get joy from the game.
We also get a look inside a pivotal moment in Saka’s career, when a WhatsApp message from Henry helped shift his perspective after his missed penalty shot against Italy in the final of the UEFA Euro 2020 tournament. Throughout the film, Henry acts as the Yoda to Saka’s young Jedi, breaking down his motivations, asking him tough questions, and providing the kind of perspective only someone who has already lived that life could.
The doc will be streaming on Disney+ in select international markets from June 5, and in the U.S. later this month, along with the ESPN App. The film will also air on Fox in the U.S. on June 7 at 1:30 p.m. EDT, and will be available on Fox One.
It’s also—and stop me if you’ve heard this one before—a WhatsApp commercial. The film is produced by the Meta-owned messaging app, and is its latest master class in creating brand entertainment that is actually just entertainment. The story is real and the characters compelling, and the product just happens to sit naturally within it all.
Here, the story catalyst is the fact that Henry and Saka first connected over WhatsApp. In 2023, for the award-winning film We Are Ayenda, it was the Afghan women’s soccer team’s use of WhatsApp to coordinate their escape from the Taliban. And in last year’s The Seat, it was the Mercedes Formula 1 team’s use of WhatsApp to discuss how they would replace the legendary driver Lewis Hamilton. In each instance, all created with the brand entertainment agency Modern Arts, WhatsApp played a real role and fit seamlessly into each film.
Real stories, real impact
WhatsApp’s global head of brand, Jennie Morel, says that the goal for The Time is Now is to use the occasion of the World Cup to grow its user base in the U.S. by showing how a superstar like Saka uses the app.
“Soccer is having such a big moment right now, we wanted to tell a story that really resonated with this fandom because we know that WhatsApp’s going to be so integral to their experience as they’re watching games and connecting with their fellow fans and group chats,” says Morel. “So it was really important for us to find a story that would be relevant to this time.”
When WhatsApp created The Seat, about Mercedes F1 replacing Hamilton with youngster Kimi Antonelli, many fans had no idea who Antonelli was. Fast-forward a year since the film’s release, and Antonelli sits atop the F1 rankings and the film is still one of the top sports docs on Netflix. Morel says that telling stories like this gives them a much longer shelf life than traditional brand work.
“I’d be remiss to say that we don’t experience the long tail effect of it,” says Morel. “It’s absolutely one of the reasons why we’ve decided to do this. It’s not about just telling this story at this moment in time, but being relevant to [Saka’s] career as he continues to grow.”
Last year, Brooke Stites, CEO of Modern Arts, told me an evergreen insight into what works for brand entertainment: Every brand wants to tap into culture; but to tell stories people really want to hear, you need to find the stories in culture that authentically include your brand instead of trying to force-feed your brand into culture.
It sounds so simple, and yet few brands can truly make it happen.
Morel agrees and says that the key to this type of project is just how naturally the brand fits within it. “When we identify our partners, whether it’s Giannis [Antetokounmpo, the NBA star] or Bukayo or Kimi, WhatsApp is an inherent part of their everyday lives, so it’s not forced, she says. “And that gives us the opportunity to resonate deeper with feelings.”
