While the recent tennis season has come to a close, Amazon MGM Studios, Universal Television and Entertainment 360 along with one of the sports more iconic stars are looking to team on a new scripted series set in the world of a competitive tennis academy. Sources have confirmed to Deadline that Prime and Universal are teaming on the scripted series Rally with Julie Plec on as showrunner and Andre Agassi set as an exec producer.
Entertainment 360’s Guymon Casady will exec produce through Entertainment 360 with Pelc also exec producing through her My So-Called banner along with her partner Emily Cummins. Justin Gimelstob will also exec produce.
Set at a hyper-competitive elite tennis academy, the series follows ambitious young players discover the loneliest sport in the world demands sacrificing the very connections that might be the only thing that makes winning feel worth it.
Casady, a lifelong tennis fan who has spent his recent years not just following the sport but traveling with his two sons to tournaments all over the country, and came up with the idea after spending time at multiple tennis/sports academies with his two sons. 360 then partnered with Plec’s production company My So-Called Company, before Julie Plec herself decided to write.
Casady and Entertainment 360 are no strangers to the sports series having recently exec produced the hit Apple TV+ series Stick starring Owen Wilson as a former PGA golfer turned caddy. The show was recently renewed for a second season. Casady and Entertainment 360 also exec produced the hit HBO series Game of Thrones.
Agassi is a former World #1 with 60 career ATP Tour singles titles, including eight majors. Agassi is one of only five players in tennis history to complete the career Grand Slam and Olympic singles gold medal. Agassi is recognized as one of the most charismatic and entertaining athletes of all-time. Through his acclaimed memoir, “OPEN”, Agassi laid bare his childhood exiled to the original tennis academy, the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Bradenton, Florida and how after reaching world #1 and falling to world #141 he used his commitment to impacting lives through education and his Andre Agassi Foundation for Education to inspire his comeback to world #1.
Plec is under an overall deal at Universal Television, where she and Emily Cummins, president of her production company, My So-Called Company, have projects in active development across multiple platforms. The company recently launched We Were Liars (based on the best-selling novel by E. Lockhart), which quickly rose to #1 worldwide on Prime Video. Prior to that was The Girls on the Bus for Max, inspired by a chapter in Amy Chozick’s bestselling book Chasing Hillary. Plec is responsible for the complete Vampire Diaries Universe, which spanned 13 years and more than 300-episodes of television.
Gimelstob is a former world #63 in singles and #18 in doubles. Winning seventeen titles including the 1998 Australian Open and French Open Mixed Doubles Championships with Venus Williams. Gimelstob was national junior champion in every age division and NCAA Doubles champion at UCLA. After his playing career, Gimelstob successfully transitioned to every facet of sports, building a multifaceted career across broadcasting, production, talent representation and brand management.
Plec is represented by WME, Entertainment 360 and Felker, Toczek, Suddleson, McGinnis Ryan.
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