Zoey Deutch has been cast to star in “The 99’ers,” Netflix’s upcoming sports biopic about the United States soccer team’s victory in the 1999 FIFA Women’s World Cup.
Deutch will play Marla Messing, the groundbreaking executive who was president and CEO of the committee that organized the Women’s World Cup. Messing is one of the key people behind the scenes who set the foundations for modern American soccer in the 1990s, also serving on the committee for the 1994 FIFA Men’s World Cup and as a founding executive of Major League Soccer.
The 1999 Women’s World Cup set attendance and viewership records for soccer in the United States, culminating in the Americans’ penalty kick victory in the final that became a watershed moment both for soccer and women’s sports in the country. Emily Bader is set to star in “The 99’ers” as one of the team’s biggest stars, Mia Hamm.
Messing is an executive producer on the film with Jill Mazursky and Krista Smith. Liza Chasin is producing for 3Dot Productions, which has a production deal at Netflix — alongside Hayley Stool and Ross Greenburg.
Katie Lovejoy, Dana Stevens and Peter Hedges wrote the script, which is an adaptation of the book “The Girls of Summer: The U.S. Women’s Soccer Team and How It Changed the World” by Jere Longman. Mazursky and Jamee Decio were the first writers on the project.
Deutch most recently starred in the comedy “Gail Daughtry’s Celebrity Sex Pass,” which premiered at Sundance this past weekend. She is also set to star next in the Netflix film “Voicemails for Isabelle.” She is repped by CAA, Untitled Entertainment and Hansen, Jacobson, Teller.
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