It’s a battle of the Battles Of The Sexes movies, as just a few weeks after HBO announced Elizabeth Banks and Paul Giamatti would star in their film about the famed match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs, Deadline reports Steve Carell and Emma Stone will star in a rival movie for Fox Searchlight.
Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire) wrote the script and previously Danny Boyle was set to direct, but he’s not mentioned in the Deadline report so may have moved on.
The film will be set in the early 70s, when former male World Number 1 tennis played and self-proclaimed chauvinist Bobby Riggs’ declared that the female game was inferior and that a top woman player couldn’t beat him even at the age of 55. He then challenged the already legendary female player Billie Jean King to a match, but she declined.
However Margaret Court, who was then the top female player in the world, took on the challenge, but lost to Bobby in straight sets, seemingly confirming Riggs’ claims. King wasn’t going to stand for that and agreed to play Bobby in what became a nationally televised media sensation.
It was an important time in King’s life for another reason too, as for the first time she’d relatively recently become involved in a relationship with a woman, even though she was still married to a man at the time.
These aren’t the only Battle Of The Sexes movies in the works either, as Will Ferrell has previously been reported to be working on a comedy version where he’ll play Bobby Riggs. However there hasn’t been any news on that film for some time.