Elizabeth Banks (Pitch Perfect) and Paul Giamatti (Sideways) are set to star in a new project for HBO and Playtone about the Battle of the Sexes tennis match of 1973 which saw Billie Jean King beat former Wimbledon champion Bobby Riggs.
Deadline reports that writer David Auburn (Proof) is set to pen the film, with Playtone producing partners Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman executive producing alongside Banks and her husband and producing partner Max Handelman under their Brownstone Productions company.
This isn’t the first project based upon the match to have been greenlit recently. Last year, Chernin Entertainment and Gary Sanchez Productions, headed by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay, announced it is set to make Match Maker, based on an EPSN article by Don Van Matta Jr.
Written by Steve Conrad (The Secret Life of Walter Mitty), the film version will see Ferrell playing Riggs in a version where “Riggs’ indebtedness to outside parties could have influenced the results of an event that caught the zeitgeist like few sporting events have, drawing 50 million viewers to the telecast.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ONsp_bmDYXc&list=PL18yMRIfoszFLSgML6ddazw180SXMvMz5
Originally published March 12, 2015. Updated April 14, 2018.
