Friday’s animated “GOAT” looks to follow “Zootopia 2” as the latest big screen, animal-celebrating comedy with global potential.

Naturally, this outing that stars basketball legend Stephen Curry, Gabrielle Union and Patton Oswalt is a family film with something to say.

Set in an all-animal world, our plucky if diminutive hero is a goat Will Harris (Caleb McLaughlin) who dreams of becoming the GOAT – that’s Greatest Of All Time – at the high intensity co-ed, full contact sport Roarball.

Can Will match the fastest, fiercest animal players around?

Curry, 37, produced and also, a first, voices Lenny, a giraffe. “We knew the story, set in Roarball with an all-animal world, is not just a sports story,” Curry noted in a virtual press conference. “It’s the idea of, obviously, dreaming big, and just that underdog mentality when you have critics and naysayers. And you don’t look the part.

“I grew up in a basketball family, but my journey couldn’t have been further from the NBA kid,” he recalled. “It was right in my face of how much of a late bloomer I was. How much I’d have to earn everything I got.

“Because all I heard was what I couldn’t do. Or I wasn’t big enough. Or I wasn’t fast enough. You start to compare yourself to people at your stage.

“But running your own race, living your own journey, being ready for when your moment is there – that’s a lot of what I see in myself and Will.”

In high school Gabrielle Union, 53, was a year ’round athlete in soccer, track and basketball. She’s Jett Fillmore, a black panther, the star player on the Thorns team. Jett’s relationship with Will becomes the film’s focus.

“It’s huge,” Union said of playing a GOAT.  “Growing up as an athlete, you’re looking up to older girls and women and it feels like a world away.  Like, ‘I’m never gonna be that good.’ But we were always encouraged to look to these Herculean efforts (by women basketball stars) as, ‘That is greatness.’

“Greatness,” she was taught, “has to look one way.  You got to be hard-nosed.  I mean, I grew up with a very Bobby Knight type of father.  Very ‘The Great Santini’ (“these are super-dated references for all you old heads out there,” she joked).  But very disciplined.

“I recognize now I went from a bull in a china shop type of woman to learning different leadership styles. And different ways of communicating to be a better teammate in life and on the court.

“Jett has a very similar journey.  So, I’m just honored to be able to play someone like Jett and be a part of this.

“Hopefully I’m playing a character that boys and girls can grow up to want to emulate.”

“GOAT” is in theaters Friday.