Matthew McConaughey to star in Kari Skogland's soccer film 'Dallas Sting'
Jul 30, 2022
Washington [US], July 30 : Hollywood star Matthew McConaughey is all set to star in the upcoming soccer film 'Dallas Sting', which is being helmed by Kari Skogland.
According to Deadline, the movie's plot will be a fact-based story of how a group of Dallas high school girls headed to China in 1984 as the ultimate underdog and beat some of the best women's teams from China, Australia and Italy. Production on the project will commence this fall in New Orleans.
Skydance's David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Don Granger are producing with Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter and Robbie Rogers. Michael McGrath is the exec producer. Those producers won a movie auction to acquire an unpublished article by Flinder Boyd.
In the drama scripted by Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch, McConaughey will play Bill Kinder, the coach who led the rag-tag group of Texas teens toward a Rocky-esque destiny. Long before the U.S. Women's national team achieved Olympic and World Cup dominance, came the Dallas Sting.
Deadline reported, that in 1984, US President Reagan made a concerted effort to open relations with China. China in turn invited America to send its U.S. Women's Soccer Team to the first world championship they were holding for women's soccer.
There was only one problem - there was no US Women's Soccer Team. A nationwide search led officials to a 19-and-under league of Dallas high school girls who called themselves The Sting, after the recent Robert Redford-Paul Newman hit movie.
Led by Kinder, who had no prior experience coaching soccer before he formed the team, the story of how this passionate group of young women got to China was miraculous. And what they did against the world's top women's teams from China, Australia and Italy -- comprised of grown women who played together for years -- was nothing short of a miracle, as per Deadline.