Ronda Rousey writing script for Netflix film about her life

Former WWE & UFC star Ronda Rousey is turning her life story into a film for Netflix.

First reported by Deadline on Thursday, Rousey has agreed to a deal to adapt her memoirs into a biopic for Netflix. Rousey is making her debut as a screenwriter for the film but will not be acting in it.

Rousey’s second memoir “Our Fight” was released this April. The movie will cover that book in addition to her 2015 memoir “My Fight/Your Fight.” Both books were written by Rousey and her sister Maria Burns-Ortiz.

According to Deadline, Rousey fought hard to make sure that she was the scriptwriter for this film. Rousey worked as an intern in the story department for agency William Morris Endeavor (WME) as she prepared to write the script.

Deadline notes that, when Rousey’s agents took the script to market, they tore off the first page so studios would not know who wrote it and would not have any pre-conceived biases:

After months of working in coverage, [Rousey] was challenged by her long-time WME agents, who have been with her pre-UFC, to write the script about her life, a task she handled all by herself in just seven days, blowing away her agents [who] couldn’t believe the script was from a first time writer. The script was soon taken to the market with Chernin moving fast to land a meeting to come on as producers and after that one sit down, attached themselves as producers.

Knowing they had something special, insiders say when the package was taken to the market, the front page of the script was torn off prior to the meeting with Netflix, that way execs went in with no pre-conceived bias and only found out who wrote it after they had finished the script. Execs immediately reached out about who the writer was after reading the script and even after finding out it was Rousey did not take long before putting in an offer.

Paramount previously owned the rights to adapt Rousey’s first memoir, but they lapsed after “a handful of regime changes at the studio.”

Rousey’s WWE career is covered in her new memoir. The book is critical of Vince McMahon, Bruce Prichard, and John Laurinaitis. Though McMahon and Laurinaitis are gone from WWE, Rousey doubts that she will ever return to the company. She responded last month when Good Morning America asked her about potentially going back to WWE:

Not unless things drastically change with how things are run there, and so I highly doubt it.

Rousey has been gone from WWE since August 2023.