After more than proving his directing mettle with Nathan For You and The Rehearsal, Nathan Fielder entered another echelon with The Curse, helming seven episodes (including the mind-bending finale). Now, the comedian, actor, writer, and director has notched another step in his filmmaking ascendancy with the announcement of his feature directorial debut.
THR reports he’ll reteam with The Curse star and producer Emma Stone and her company Fruit Tree for Checkmate, which A24 has picked up. With Fielder on board to direct and Stone on as producer, the film is an adaptation from a forthcoming book by Ben Mezrich, whose works have been adapted into The Social Network and Dumb Money.
Picked up on a 12-page proposal from Mezrich ahead of the full book, the story spotlights “the biggest scandal in the history of chess, focusing on the generational battle between Grandmaster Magnus Carlsen and the young bad boy of chess, Hans Niemann. The latter was accused of cheating in one of the pair’s head-to-head matches, which became an all-consuming scandal in the world of chess and beyond.” Mezrich’s book will also capture the “rise of a billion-dollar chess industry and so-called ‘collision of tradition and innovation’ in the game.”
With the book not yet completed, it sounds like the project is still in its early days, we’ll have to see what Fielder ends up tackling next. He recently confirmed a second season of The Curse, somehow, is potentially in the cards. For more on the chess controversy, head here or watch below.