Variety reports that UFC Women’s Bantamweight Champion Ronda Rousey is set to star in MGM’s upcoming remake of the 1989 movie Road House. Rousey is expected to play a female version of the Patrick Swayze role from the original film.
Production on the film is slated to begin next year with the search for a writer to pen the screenplay currently underway.
“It is a great honor to play a part in celebrating the life of a man that inspired so many,” Rousey wrote on Twitter. “I couldn’t be more grateful to have this opportunity to pay respect to the beloved Patrick Swayze…I promise to work incessantly to make sure this project is a tribute his family and fans can be proud of.”
Rousey has transitioned from fighting in the ring to fighting on the big screen recently with roles in The Expendables 3, Furious 7, and a cameo as herself in the Entourage movie. The fighter is also set to star as herself in Paramount Pictures’ adaptation of her own New York Times best-selling autobiography, My Fight/Your Fight.
In the original film, produced by Joel Silver, Swayze played a bouncer hired to tame a rowdy bar in Missouri called “The Double Deuce.” Though the film only went on to gross just $30 million at the box office, it went on to build a large cult following.
Plans for a remake date back as far as 2013 with XXX and The Fast and the Furious director Rob Cohen attached, though it ultimately never materialized.
