EXCLUSIVE: Netflix is in development on The 99’ers, a feature adaptation of Jeré Longman’s book The Girls of Summer: The US Women’s Soccer Team and How It Changed the World.
Nicole Kassell, the Emmy-winner known for her work on shows like Watchmen and Netflix’s upcoming Sirens, is set to direct from a script by Katie Lovejoy (Love at First Sight, To All the Boys: Always and Forever) and Dana Stevens (The Woman King, Fatherhood).
The 99’ers follows the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team who, in 1999, under the scorching summer sun and in a stadium filled with 93,000 fans, defied the odds to emerge victorious in a dramatic penalty kick shootout against China in the World Cup final. This monumental win captivated millions worldwide and forever altered the course of women’s sports.
A sports reporter for the New York Times, author Longman has also penned titles like The Hurricanes: One High School Team’s Homecoming After Katrina and If Football’s a Religion, Why Don’t We Have a Prayer?: Philadelphia, Its Faithful, and the Eternal Quest for Sports Salvation.
Producers on The 99’ers include Liza Chasin for 3dot Productions, along with Ryan Reynolds, Hayley Stool, and Ross Greenburg. Exec producers include Margaret Chernin, Marla Messing, Jill Mazursky, and Krista Smith. For Chasin’s 3dot, the project falls under a creative partnership with Netflix that most recently spawned The Life List, a YA romantic dramedy starring Sofia Carson that has spent four weeks at #1 on the Netflix Global Top 10 Films List (English).
Recognized with an Emmy and a DGA Award for her work on Watchmen, which she also exec produced, Kassell’s work in television has also spanned series like Castle Rock, Westworld, and The Americans, among many others. Most recently, she directed on and exec produced Sirens, a cult-themed dark comedy for Netflix, starring Julianne Moore, Meghann Fahy and Milly Alcock, which premieres May 22. She is repped by WME, Entertainment 360, and Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz.
Lovejoy has previously been in business with Netflix on its YA romantic drama Love at First Sight, starring Haley Lu Richardson and Ben Hardy, as well as To All the Boys: Always and Forever, the third and final installment in the hit YA film series To All the Boys. She is repped by Kaplan/Perrone Entertainment and Myman Greenspan Fox.
Stevens scripted Gina Prince-Bythewood’s The Woman King and also boasts credits like Fatherhood, Safe Haven, Life or Something Like It, and For Love of the Game. She is repped by UTA, Untitled Entertainment, and Johnson Shapiro Slewett & Kole.
