Matthew McConaughey To Return To The Big Screen In Director Kari Skogland's Dallas Sting

Matthew McConaughey has found his next project. The "True Detective" actor is set to star in "Dallas Sting," a sports drama written by the team behind "GLOW" that's based on the remarkable true story of the 1984 U.S. Women's Soccer team. "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier" filmmaker Kari Skogland is set to direct the project. The news comes via Deadline today.

While underdog sports stories are a dime a dozen, the real-life events that inspired "Dallas Sting" seem like the stuff great movies are made of. The story follows a group of Dallas, Texas high school girls who were chosen to represent the U.S. at the first global women's championship in China in the mid-'80s. There was no official women's soccer team representing America at the time, and members of the Sting Soccer Club were ultimately tasked with playing against much more practiced international teams at the historic event.

McConaughey, who last took on a live-action feature role in 2019, will play the team's coach, Bill Kinder. Kinder reportedly had no coaching experience prior to putting the team together, and even funded the team's trip on credit cards. In an interview with The Dallas Morning News, the real-life Kinder explained that he first got involved in girls' soccer in the late '60s, and the formation of a league inspired "a great deal of pushback," including referees' refusal to officiate games. By 1984, the sport and the Sting had grown in popularity, to the point that the team was chosen to represent the entire country. Still, there was plenty of bureaucracy and underestimation to get past before the girls could play on the world stage. "Dallas Sting" will apparently tackle the whole story.

The film will mark a welcome return to the genre for "GLOW" co-creators Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch, who penned the script for the film. The pair are no stranger to '80s underdog stories about ragtag groups of women. Their wrestling comedy, which was inspired by the true story of televised women's wrestling, was canceled in 2020 after three seasons on Netflix. Since then, the pair co-created "Roar," a magical realist anthology series based on Cecelia Ahern's short story collection of the same name.

Flahive and Mensch have an overall deal with Apple, as does "Dallas Sting" producer Skydance, so it's very possible the film could end up landing a distribution deal with the company, but as of now one has not been made. Dana Goldberg, Don Granger, Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter, and Robbie Rogers will produce the film, which is expected to shoot this fall.