Kevin Costner In Talks For Aaron Sorkin’s ‘Molly’s Game’
EXCLUSIVE: Kevin Costner is in talks to take a seat at the table for The Mark Gordon Co’s Molly’s Game. The Jessica Chastain- and Idris Elba-starrer marks the directorial debut of Aaron Sorkin. A deal still may not make, but I’m hearing if it does, Costner would play the father of Chastain’s eponymous character.
Sorkin adapted the screenplay from the memoir by Molly Bloom. The true story centers on Bloom, a young, charismatic Olympic-class skier who ran the world’s most exclusive high-stakes poker game for a decade before being arrested in the middle of the night by 17 FBI agents wielding automatic weapons. Her players included Hollywood royalty, sports stars, business titans and finally, unbeknownst to her, the Russian mob. Her only ally is her criminal defense lawyer (Elba), who learns that there’s much more to Molly than the tabloids lead us to believe.
This was one of the hottest pre-sales titles in Cannes last May where STX Entertainment acquired U.S rights. Entertainment One and The Mark Gordon Company are financing. Gordon is producing with Amy Pascal via her Pascal Pictures banner. Leopoldo Gout is an executive producer. EOne is directly distributing in Canada, the UK, Australia/New Zealand, Benelux and Spain. Sierra/Affinity represents all other international territories outside of the U.S. and closed a raft of deals in Cannes.
Shooting begins next month on the film which Gordon told me at Cannes in May is “a very human story… It’s a character piece, it’s the people in her life, it’s her transformation of going from a young woman who was just about to go to law school who got sucked up into this wonderful, horrible opportunity of running this card game in Los Angeles.”
Oscar-winner Costner is next up in Fox’s Christmas release Hidden Figures. He’s repped by WME.
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