Anya Taylor-Joy to Star in ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ Limited Series at Netflix

VARIETY – Netflix has put out an order for a new limited series, “The Queen’s Gambit,” starring Anya Taylor-Joy, Variety has learned.

Based on Walter Tevis’s 1983 novel of the same name, the six-episode show will be set during the Cold War era and will follow orphan chess prodigy Beth Harmon (Taylor-Joy) from the age of eight to twenty-two, as she struggles with addiction in a quest to become the greatest chess player in the world.

Two-time Oscar nominee Scott Frank, who created the Netflix show “Godless” and wrote the screenplay for the 2017 movie “Logan,” will serve as writer, director, and executive producer on the series. “The Talented Mr Ripley” producer William Horberg will executive produce, alongside Allan Scott who will co-write the show.

Taylor-Joy, who is best known for playing Casey Cooke in M. Night Shyamalan’s “Glass” and “Split,” is repped by CAA, Troika, and Felker Toczek Suddleson Abramson. In 2015, she starred in the chilling horror film “The Witch.”

A film adaptation of “The Queen’s Gambit” was in the works in 2007, with Heath Ledger set to make his directorial debut and Ellen Page in line to star. However, the project was shelved after Ledger’s death in January, 2008.

Tevis’s other novels include “The Man Who Fell To Earth,” which has been adapted for both film and television, “The Hustler,” which was adapted into the 1961 movie starring Paul Newman and Jackie Gleason, and its sequel “The Color Of Money,” which was lossely adapted for the big screen in 1986 by Martin Scorsese.