EXCLUSIVE: Amazon MGM Studios has acquired the sports pitch Play by Play from Chris McCoy, with Jake Gyllenhaal (Road House) attaching to star, Deadline has learned.
McCoy will script the film, the plot of which is being kept under wraps. Gyllenhaal will also produce via his Nine Stories banner alongside Josh McLaughlin and Religion of Sports’ Tom Brady and Gotham Chopra.
Under a first-look film deal at Amazon MGM, Gyllenhaal previously starred in its 2024 remake of Road House, directed by Doug Liman, which broke records with more than 50 million viewers in its first two weekends on Prime Video; he is returning for a forthcoming sequel helmed by Ilya Naishuller, where he’s also a producer. He’s also in business with the streamer on Honeymoon with Harry, a forthcoming dramedy where he’ll star opposite Kevin Costner, as well as Code Black, a political thriller based on a short story by Harrison Query that’s currently in development.
Coming off of Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for his starring turn in Apple’s Presumed Innocent, a murder mystery that is now one of Apple’s most-watched dramas of all time, Gyllenhaal is back on board as executive producer of the forthcoming second season. Beginning tonight, you can catch him in Warner Bros’ Frankenstein-inspired gothic crime flick The Bride!, directed by his sister Maggie Gyllenhaal, which is just opening in theaters. Other upcoming projects include M. Night Shyamalan’s supernatural romantic thriller Remain, which Warner Bros releases on October 23, and the Netflix action thriller Kill Switch, also penned by Query.
Jake Gyllenhaal is repped by WME and Carlos Goodman.
McCoy has written for Marvel, Disney, Fox, DreamWorks, Paramount and Laika, and has published two novels with Knopf. Most recently, he sold his spec Hit the Gas to Paramount with Neal H. Moritz and Tania Landau producing. Thrice named to The Black List, he is repped by UTA, Gotham Group and HJTH.
Known for sports and pop culture docs such as Prime Video’s Built in Birmingham: Brady & the Blues, Netflix’s Simone Biles Rising and Hulu’s Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story, Religion of Sports has recently worked on titles like Glitter & Gold: Ice Dancing, Rise of the 49ers and 5-Star among others.