Yahoo News Mayim Bialik’s Sad Clown Prepping ‘The Maccabees’ Film On Historic Achievements Of Yeshiva University Men’s Basketball Team
EXCLUSIVE: Mayim Bialik’s Sad Clown Productions is gearing up to produce The Maccabees, a new feature on the historic achievements of the Yeshiva University Men’s Basketball Team, coached by Elliot Steinmetz.
Written by Matt Ritter (Chained to My Ex), the film will watch as a lawyer moonlighting as a basketball coach leads his underdog team of Jewish players to a remarkable winning streak, shattering stereotypes in the process.
More from Deadline
Standing against the odds with a historic run, winning over 50 games in the 2019 and 2020 seasons — the longest winning streak in the history of men’s college basketball — the Yeshiva team has continued to crush stereotypes up to the present. A sturdy team that’s defied all odds while staying true to their heritage, they’ve played while enduring antisemitic slurs and created a schedule that works for their religious needs, as they observe the Sabbath, fasting days and Jewish holidays. Their faith in each other as teammates combined with their Jewish faith has led to a remarkable team that remains a true forced to be reckoned with.
Bialik will produce alongside Sad Clown partners Hayley Lozitsky Weisser and Alyssa Wilden, as well as Samir Hernandez (Two Distant Strangers), Founder and CEO of GTG Studios, and Ritter. Brett Gursky is also an Associate Producer on the project. No director is attached at present.
In a statement on the project, Bialik observed that “while it has certainly been a complicated year, what remains true is that stories of Jewish ingenuity, perseverance, and resilience are necessary more than ever. Who would’ve ever dreamed that a basketball team from the nation’s most prestigious religious Jewish university could reach the DIVISION 3 NCAA finals. Our company is proud to bring this truly unbelievable and inspiring story to life, and we are eager to find partners who believe in continuing the message that Coach Elliot Steinmetz and the Maccabees of Yeshiva University were able to spread in their historic run.”
Since its launch in 2019, Sad Clown has looked to build a slate of smart and inspiring content, across scripted and unscripted, which focus on real, flawed, grounded characters who are searching for answers and looking for confidence. Thus far, the company has produced the Fox sitcom Call Me Kat, starring Bialik, which ran for three seasons, as well as the 2022 indie drama As They Made Us, written and directed by Bialik, which starred Dianna Agron, Simon Helberg, Candice Bergen and Dustin Hoffman, marking Bialik’s feature directorial debut.
Breaking out in the ’90s as the star of the sitcom Blossom, which ran for five seasons on NBC, Bialik is best known for her fan-favorite role of Amy Farrah Fowler on the critically acclaimed CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory, a role which earned her two Critics’ Choice Awards, as well as four Emmy nominations and one from SAG.
More recently, Bialik served as host of Jeopardy! for 2 seasons, earning her fifth Emmy nomination for her contributions to the iconic quiz show, which won its first primetime Emmy the year she hosted. Bialik also hosts the popular mental health podcast, Mayim Bialik’s Breakdown, which boasts over 26 million downloads and counting. She holds a BS and PhD in Neuroscience from UCLA and has authored four books, two of which are on the New York Times Bestsellers list.
The creator of the acclaimed MSNBC series Chained to My Ex, Ritter has also directed the documentary Tasteless and was featured on the 2019 Black List for his script Doll Wars. He’s also the co-host of friendship podcast Man of the Year, which has been featured on the Today Show, NPR, and in The New York Times.
Producing credits for Hernandez — most of them, sports-oriented— include the Emmy-winning HBO docu short 38 at the Garden on the NBA’s Jeremy Lin, Showtime’s Emmy-nominated NYC Point Gods, Netflix’s Oscar-winning live-action short Two Distant Strangers, and the Netflix doc A Kid from Coney Island on former NBA star Stephon Marbury, to name a few.
Bialik, Hernandez and Ritter are all repped by UTA. Ritter is also repped by Bellevue Productions.
Best of Deadline
2024 Premiere Dates For New & Returning Series On Broadcast, Cable & Streaming
Which Emily Henry Books Are Becoming Movies? ‘Happy Place,’ ‘Book Lovers,’ Among Others
Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
