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Emma Stone and Steve Carell are set to play tennis players Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs in Fox Searchlight’s “Battle of the Sexes”.
The film tells the true story of the infamous 1973 ‘battle of the sexes’ tennis match when 29-year old No. 2 ranked female star King beat 55-year old retired former Wimbledon champion Riggs.
Production has been slated for the fall with Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (“Little Miss Sunshine”) directing from Simon Beaufoy’s script.
Deadline broke the news, noting the film “will be presented as a comedy with dramatic and political overtones.”
If the subject of this film is sounding familiar, it could be because Fox is not the studio developing a project about the match. Will Ferrell is attached to a Chernin Entertainment/Gary Sanchez production, and HBO and Playtone have a project set up with Elizabeth Banks and Paul Giamatti in the lead roles.
Producers of the Fox project are Danny Boyle of Decibel Films and Christian Colson of Cloud Eight.
With a script complete, a cast set and production ready to go, the film is likely to be released next year.
