The already legendary Will Ferrell is set to take on new Tennis-based comedy-drama MATCH MAKER that’s being written by THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY’S Steven Conrad. It’s an adaption of the ESPN Magazine article ‘The Match Maker: Bobby Riggs, The Mafia and The Battle of the Sexes‘ by Don Van Natta Jr. that looks at the real-life sport conflict between Riggs and Billie Jean King.
The story is about the infamous rivalry between retired Tennis-star Bobby Riggs who came back to the game just to challenge women’s tennis player Billie Jean King in 1973. The game at the time was sold as ‘The Battle of the Sexes’. America was hooked and tens of millions tuned in to watch King beat Riggs and take the £100k jackpot. But that’s not the whole story, as there were also rumours that Riggs threw the game to pay off/ignore Mob gambling debts but, either way, it’s an absolutely fascinating story and we’d be very interested to see what develops with this one.
MATCH MAKER is currently being developed by Chernin Entertainment and we’ll bring more news as we hear, writer Conrad is also currently working the John Belushi biopic that stars Emile Hirsch.
Source: THR
