Renee Zellweger Books Sports Comedy as First Post-Oscar Role

Renee Zellweger is hitting the golf course for her new film. According to Deadline, the two-time Academy Award winner is attached to star in The Back Nine, a comedy that will be directed by Michael Patrick King, who is known for Sex and the City. Zellweger and Carmella Casinelli will be executive producers for Big Picture Co., along with Jhoni Marchinko and Krista Smith.

This will be the first role for Zellweger since winning the Oscar last year for Best Actress in the film Judy. For The Back Nine, Zellweger plays Casey Jones, and Deadline says that Zellweger’s character “gave up a golf career so that her husband could have one. When she wakes up one morning to find her 25-year old marriage in free fall and her son off to college, she dusts off the clubs she tossed aside years ago in an effort to finally turn pro and redefine the ‘back nine’ of her life.”

“Jhoni and Krista and I are very excited to have the amazing Renee Zellweger do our movie The Back Nine,” King said. “A stunning actress with incredible range, she can make you laugh and cry and has a great golf swing. What more could anyone want?” The Back Nine is set at Landline Pictures which for formed by Amy Baer, the former senior executive at Sony Pictures and CBS Films.

“Landline is so fortunate to launch with Back Nine anchoring our inaugural slate,” Baer said. “It’s the perfect film for our mandate – star-driven, aspirational, relatable, and wildly funny. Michael and Renee are a formidable team and are going to make a classic movie for a broad audience.” Zellweger, 51, returned to screen acting in 2016 after taking six years off. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in 2016, Zellweger talked about why she took a hiatus.

“I wanted to grow,” she said. “If you don’t explore other things, you wake up 20 years later and you’re still that same person who only learns anything when she goes out to research a character. You need to grow!” In her career, Zellweger has been nominated for four Oscars with two wins. She has also earned seven Gold Globe nominations while winning four of them. Zellweger’s film credits include Bridget Jones’s Diary, Cold Mountain, Chicago and Miss Potter.