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Fox is developing a comedy with Ali Larter and Ben Stiller about a mom who becomes a pro football cheerleader.
Larter (Heroes, The Rookie) will star in and executive produce The Sidelines, a single-camera comedy from SideCar Content Accelerator — the network’s in-house content arm — and Fox Entertainment. Stiller will also exec produce via his Red Hour Films. Fox has given a script commitment to the project.
Written by The Good Place veteran Kate Gersten, the show centers on Larter’s character, a newly separated mother of two who, at age 40, decides to chase her lifelong dream of becoming a professional football cheerleader. Against all odds, she makes the squad for a team in her hometown of Detroit and becomes the accidental den mother to a group of scrappy, resilient young women, rediscovering herself in the process.
Gersten and Larter will exec produce with SideCar head Gail Berman, Alissa Vradenburg, Stiller and Red Hour’s Nicky Weinstock and Jackie Cohn. Laura Vikmanis, who became the oldest NFL cheerleader when she made the Cincinnati Bengals’ squad in 2009, is a consulting producer. Vikmanis wrote a book about her experience called It’s Not About the Pom-Poms.
Larter currently recurs on ABC’s The Rookie. Her other recent credits include ABC’s Splitting Up Together and Fox’s baseball drama Pitched, along with the feature film Resident Evil: The Final Chapter. She is repped by Untitled Entertainment and Gersh. Vikmanis is also with Gersh.
The Sidelines joins a development slate at Fox that also includes the comedies Kidless; The Second Half, from Will Arnett and NBA star Stephen Curry; and Carla, starring Mayim Bialik and exec produced by her and Big Bang Theory co-star Jim Parsons; and the dramas Florida Man, Sometimes I Lie and Other People’s Houses, the latter two of which have Sarah Michelle Gellar attached to star.
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