A few months back it was announced that Matthew McConaughey would portray soccer coach Bill Kinder in “Dallas Sting,” the true story of a high school girls’ soccer team that traveled to China and defeated some of the best teams in the world. Just six weeks before production was set to start, however, the film has been scrapped over “disturbing allegations.”
The Hollywood Reporter first reported the story.
Skydance is no longer moving forward with #DallasSting, a soccer project starring Matthew McConaughey. The studio received allegations about certain aspects of the true story of a girls soccer team's 1984 trip to China: https://t.co/3Qt7oXUqh4 pic.twitter.com/0wOuLI7vIE
— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) September 14, 2022
THR says that production company Skydance and the film’s producers received “disturbing allegations surrounding aspects of the true story on which the drama was based.” It’s unclear at this time exactly what those allegations entail but they were strong enough for the film’s financial backers and producers to pull the plug even after casting had been completed.
Along with McConaughey, Kaitlyn Dever (Booksmart, Dopesick) was set to play the coach’s daughter. The film was set to be directed by The Falcon and the Winter Soldier‘s Kari Skogland.
The thrust of the film’s story was the high school team’s Rocky-esque march through the first-ever women’s soccer world championship tournament. As there was no U.S. Women’s Soccer Team at the time, a national search led to a 19-and-under high school team called the Sting being chosen to represent the United States against professional teams from countries such as China, Australia, and Italy.
Per Deadline, one aspect of the story was that Kinder was required to “get a note from a gynecologist asserting that playing soccer would not harm a woman’s reproductive organs.”
We’ll have to wait and see if the allegations come to light, but for now, this is one true-life story that won’t be getting its Hollywood ending.
