EXCLUSIVE: After setting up her biopic project with Netflix and Chernin Entertainment, Ronda Rousey is now ready to tag in the person to take on directing duties for the film adaptation of her bestselling memoirs. Sources tell Deadline that Augustine Frizzell is set to direct the biopic based on Rousey’s memoirs My Fight/Your Fight and Our Fight, which she co-wrote with her sister Maria Burns Ortiz. Chernin Entertainment is on board to produce.
Deadline first reported the news of how this package came together, starting with Rousey working in WME’s story group department to learn about screenwriting structure and technique. After going through dozens of scripts from others, she would ultimately pen the script by herself in just seven days, shocking her agents who couldn’t believe she was a first-time writer. The script was soon taken to market, with Chernin moving fast to land a meeting and come on as producers.
When it came to finding a director, everyone involved wanted a woman to help tell Rousey’s story. After meeting several candidates, Frizzell came in and blew everyone away with her take for the film. A fan of Rousey long before she began directing TV episodes and feature films, sources say Frizzell had read both memoirs before she got the call to meet on it and knew right away this job needed to be hers. Not only is Frizzell a fan, but in her spare time she trains in Muay Thai and is well-versed in the world in which the former UFC champion came up.
Netflix also had strong ties to the director, having most recently set her to direct four of the eight episodes of the upcoming Netflix series The Boroughs. With the Duffer Brothers producing, the series created by Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews is a high priority for the streamer.
The Rousey project was originally set up at Paramount in 2015, when the studio acquired rights to the first memoir My Fight/Your Fight. Following a handful of regime changes at the studio, the rights would eventually lapse, with Netflix ultimately jumping on them after exec and longtime Rousey fan Michelle Evans championed the project.
What’s interesting here, given how much time has passed since the first memoir’s release, is that Rousey has written a second memoir, Our Fight, which goes into even more detail about her life. Some of those new details include suffering her first loss to Holly Holm and contemplating suicide post-fight; her history with concussions that preceded her MMA career; and her tumultuous relationship with her longtime coach Edmond Tarverdyan.
As for Frizzell, the rising star got her big break with her directorial feature debut Never Goin’ Back, which premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival and was released later that year by A24. The film was nominated for the John Cassavetes Award at the 2019 Independent Spirit Awards. She would also direct the pilot for the hit HBO series Euphoria., and the StudioCanal/Netflix film The Last Letter From Your Lover.
Frizzell is repped WME.
