For a long time, the world has needed more films that tell the stories of accomplished women, because the stories of men are everywhere, all the time. If you were to take the output of Hollywood as a reflection of reality, you would be forgiven for concluding that women have never achieved anything of note at all. The 2015 Oscar nominations were the perfect demonstration of this – with four of the eight Best Picture nominees being biographical tales, and all of them being about men. It seems that this trend will soon be challenged, however, as Paramount has snapped up the rights to My Fight/Your Fight – the autobiography of Ronda Rousey.
Rousey is an accomplished woman indeed. In addition to being a talented mixed martial artist, she also became the first U.S woman to win an Olympic medal in Judo in 2008. She is also a UFC champion, and has recently begun a move toward acting, with roles in Furious 7 and Expendables 3 drawing attention to her newest career progression. Paramount has set Mark Bomback (Die Hard 4.0, The Wolverine, Insurgent) to adapt her book – which took up residence on the New York Times bestseller earlier this year – although, with the project at such an early stage, a director has yet to be selected.
The interesting points here are two-fold. Firstly, there is the speculation about who will be at the helm of story. Professional fighting will feature heavily in the film, so can we hire a female director for this one? Granted, it is a man that has been tasked with writing the adaptation, but it is from a woman’s autobiography which, for that matter, she wrote with her journalist sister, Maria Burns Ortiz.
Secondly, there is the rather bizarre situation in which Ronda Rousey has apparently signed on to play herself in the adaptation of her own book. While she is clearly the most qualified for the part, it is difficult not to wonder if the production will be a little surreal, with the UFC champion presumably ‘acting out’ fictionalized versions of scenes from her own life and experience. It is very early days for My Fight/Your Fight, but further news can be expected as the script nears completion.
