Emma Stone and Nathan Fielder might be reuniting for a chess cheating scandal movie

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Emma Stone and Nathan FielderPhoto: Matt Baron/BEI (Shutterstock)

Hot on the heels of their Showtime series The Curse—which is just revving up what'll likely be a pretty extensive Emmys campaign—Nathan Fielder and Emma Stone are reportedly close to lining up their next project together. THR reports tonight that A24 is on the verge of securing the film rights to Checkmate, a book proposal about a high-profile chess-cheating scandal by writer Ben Mezrich, who previously penned the books that ended up generating The Social Network and last year's Dumb Money. Fielder and Stone are in talks to direct and produce the project, respectively, along with Stone's husband, Dave McCary.

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And yes, before you ask—your mind racing through all the other extremely prominent chess scandals of recent years we might be talking about here—this is the one where chess grandmaster Hans Niemann was pelted by internet pundits with memes that he was using anal beads to help him cheat in tournament matches. (Accusations that were put to bed with a settlement in a court case last year, by the way, with all involved stating they don't believe Niemann ever cheated in in-person games or tournaments, using any manner of... device.) The accusations shook the competitive chess world in 2022, after world champion player Magnus Carlsen resigned from a game with Niemann, tacitly accusing his opponent of cheating.

Mezrich's 16-page book proposal about the scandal apparently kicked off a heated bidding war in Hollywood, with names like Ron Howard and Taron Egerton being tossed around in different arrangements by various studios. To hear THR tell it, A24 snaked them all, tapping its Curse connections to bring Fielder and Stone on board. (Of course, it's also worth nothing that all of this is still at the tentative "in-talks" phase, albeit the kind of "in-talks" where it sounds like it's probably going to happen.)

Provided this all goes forward, it'd be Fielder's first film as a director; he previously directed or co-directed nearly every episode of Nathan For You, The Rehearsal, and The Curse. It's fascinating to see him and Stone deepen their creative connection, too; The Curse showed they had a very simpatico sensibility, and it'll be interesting to see where it takes the duo next.